I think you have something, there, Jim.
However, and seem always a "but," I see the possibility of a lot of defects going past a proofreader, assuming that was a step in the process between an author(ess) submitting a manuscript, and the book coming off the presses. A penmanship manuscript can be a bit of a bother to sort out some defects. As I have looked at late-18th and early 19th century documents, it is easy to see where a quill pen glitched, changing a period into a comma, or a multitude of other defects.
Then too, writing styles have changed from verbose, to briefer, c. about the time of the telegraph, and even briefer now, with twitter. A printed paragraph running pages long, especially with vision impairments, really get up my nose. The P&P file that I got from this site, I went through and broke up some of those long paragraphs where the subject seemed to change. Having an "eye break" help me a lot. Of course, a proper grammer nazi could cite incomplete paragraphs, but that is a more tolerable defect than wondering when come an eyebreak so I can put in a bookmark.
Editing the file also got some apparent typos corrected. It is another "cold eye" edit pass. A typo could have been done during typesetting.
Ideas? Confirmations or corrections?
"The avalanche has started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote." -Ambassador Kosh Naranek
