Dear List, We're encoding a number of early-modern songs for a pilot project and we are wondering how to deal with a special form of abbreviation and its expansion. An example: image from EEBO https://eebo.chadwyck.com/search/full_rec?SOURCE=pgimages.cfg&ACTION=ByID&ID=13587622&FILE=CITATIONS&SEARCHSCREEN=param(SEARCHSCREEN)&VID=100600&PAGENO=18&ZOOM=100&VIEWPORT=&SEARCHCONFIG=undefined&DISPLAY=param(DISPLAY)&HIGHLIGHT_KEYWORD=undefined You can see at the bottom of the left page that the last line reads: "But I have vow'd, &c.". The "&c." indicates that the rest of the refrain is to be sung; you can find it underlain in the score above, starting at about a third of the page: "But I have vow'd, and never muſt your baniſh'd ſervant trouble you for if he break you may diſtruſt, the vow he made to love you too.". We would like to encode both the "&c." and the expansion, but since this spans multiple lines, we are not able to use <choice> with <abbr> and <expan>. What should we do instead? <lg type="stanza"> <!-- first lines --> <l>About with him he bears the rage,</l> <l>And in his tainted bloud the fire.</l> <l>But I have vow'd, &c.</l> <!-- Insert expanded refrain here --> </lg> We could link together expansions, but the choice remains somewhat incomplete, as it only wraps the first part of the expansion: <l>But I have vow'd, <choice><abbr>&c.</abbr><expan xml:id="ex1" next="#ex2">and never must</expan></choice></l> <l><expan xml:id="ex2" prev="#ex1" next="#ex3">your banish'd servant trouble you</expan></l> <l><expan xml:id="ex3" prev="#ex2" next="#ex4">for if he break you may distrust,</expan></l> <l><expan xml:id="ex4" prev="#ex3">the vow he made to love you too.</expan></l> Another possibility could be wrapping the refrain in a nested <lg> and give it a subtype, but I'm not too happy about it. It also doesn't indicate clearly what was on the original document and what was expanded because "But I have vow'd," gets bundled with the rest. <l rend="indent1">And in his tainted bloud the fire.</l> <lg type="refrain" subtype="expanded"> <l>But I have vow'd, <choice> <abbr>&c.</abbr> <expan>and never muſt</expan> </choice> </l> <l>your baniſh'd ſervant trouble you</l> <l>for if he break you may diſtruſt,</l> <l><expan>the vow he made to love you too.</expan></l> </lg> </lg> Thanks for any advice you can provide! Raff -- Raffaele Viglianti, PhD Research Programmer Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities University of Maryland