Haplography

{{Short description|Accidental omission of content in text}}

Haplography (from Greek: haplo- 'single' + -graphy 'writing'), also known as lipography (from Greek: lip- from leipein 'to leave/to omit' + -graphy 'writing'),[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Chambers_21st_Century_Dictionary/Z7Ymjw1o9a0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Lipography&pg=PA796&printsec=frontcover Chambers 21st century dictionary, p.796][https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dictionary_of_Early_English/enmvCwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Lipogram&pg=PA390&printsec=frontcover Dictionary of Early English, p.390] is a scribal or typographical error where a letter or group of letters that should be written twice is written once. It is not to be confused with haplology, where a phoneme is omitted to prevent two similar sounds from occurring consecutively: the former is a textual error, while the latter is a phonological process.

In English, a common haplographical mistake is the rendering of consecutive letters between morphemes as a single letter. Many commonly misspelled words have this form. For example, misspell is often misspelled as {{typo|mi|spell}}. The etymology of the word misspell is the affix "mis-" plus the root "spell", their bound morpheme has two consecutive ss, one of which is often erroneously omitted. The reverse phenomenon, in which a copyist inadvertently repeats a portion of text, is known as dittography.

Other examples of words liable to be written haplographically in different languages are: German Rollladen ("shutters", from roll + Laden) which requires an uncommon sequence of three l‘s and is often spelt {{typo|Rolladen}}, or Arabic takyīf {{lang|ar|تكييف}} ("air conditioning"), which would require a sequence of two semivowels y (one as a true semivowel, and another as a device to mark long ī) and is often misspelt as takīf {{typo|{{lang|ar|تكيف}}}}, with only one.

The term haplography is commonly used in the field of textual criticism to refer to the phenomenon of a scribe's, copyist's or translator's inadvertently skipping from one word or phrase to a similar word or phrase further on in the text, and omitting everything in between.This usage can be seen at {{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fnBj3_hJOXIC&pg=PA99 |first1=David Noel |last1=Freedman |first2=Shawna Dolansky |last2=Overton |chapter=Omitting the omissions: the case for haplography in the transmission of the biblical texts |title="Imagining" Biblical Worlds: studies in spatial, social and historical constructs in honor of James W. Flanagan |editor1-first=David M. |editor1-last=Gunn |editor2-first=Paula M. |editor2-last=McNutt |place=London |publisher=Sheffield Academic |year=2002 |series=Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series |volume=359 |isbn=0-8264-6149-2 |pages=99–116 }} It is considered to be a form of parablepsis.

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