[acabal]

Spelling varies widely across the eras our ebooks were published in. Therefore we attempt to standardize spelling to what a modern reader might be familiar with. We only make sound-alike changes, like to-morrow -> tomorrow.

This is a common practice that editors and publishers have quietly engaged in for centuries. For example, today you are not reading Shakespeare in the way it was spelled in its first printing.

[wpollock]

A wonderful project!

After reading this comment I couldn't help but picture medieval monks, toiling away copying old manuscripts into "modern" English. Normally a thankless task, so thank you!

[cenamus]

And you're for sure not speaking it like he would have

[harshreality]

Is there epub-specific html markup you could add to changed words to indicate their original spelling? Like alt text for images, but in a span around a word? There's the html "title" attribute, of course, which would work (mouseover shows the title attribute's value), but that isn't semantically correct for the purpose.

[acabal]

No, there are too many things to track, but all of it is in the git history. Editorial changes have a commit message prefaced with [Editorial].

[frereubu]

Fair enough - thanks for the explanation.

[thoroughburro]

> For example, today you are not reading Shakespeare in the way it was spelled in its first printing.

However, we call modernised Shakespeare “abridged”.

[wlonkly]

Abridged means shortened, not modernized.