Oxford English Dictionary Urtext
An original text; the earliest version. Also attrib. or as adj.
1932 Times Lit. Suppl. 14 July 511/3 In these volumes..we have the nearest thing possible in Chopin’s case to an Urtext. 1959 Cambr. Rev. 6 June 598/2 Authoritative editions allegedly based on urtexts. 1963 S. WEINTRAUB Private Shaw & Public Shaw iv. 119 The earlier version still retains advocates, because of its more complete, ur-text quality, and the comfortable feeling that no Procrustean games were played with its vocabulary and sentence structure. 1974 Early Music Oct. 259/1 The edition is urtext, with prefatory staves, showing the original clefs and signatures. 1982 Times 2 Apr. 14/2 An urtext edition of the 21 Schubert piano sonatas. 1983 London Rev. Bks 7-20 July 21/4 Elaborate versions often point back to the gospel of Mark as a kind of cryptic Urtext.
I prefer Ur text, like Baltimore clamp (but unlike the Rosetta Stone). Ur is a place name. I veto OED’s single word version, urtext. Hyphenated is wrong, as the examples Baltimore-clamp or baltimore-clamp make clear.
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