Clause 8.13.β (Contradiction Handling)

Clause 8.13.β (Contradiction Handling) is a subordinate provision of the Second Concordance governing the disposal of contradictions too small to be filed but too persistent to be ignored. It was drafted by the Sub-Committee on Minor Inconsistencies in the winter of 4,112 and ratified without debate, the chamber having emptied during the reading of the preceding clause. The β designation indicates a revision of the original Clause 8.13, which was withdrawn after four days when it was discovered that the clause contradicted itself in its second sentence and could not, under its own terms, be handled.

Text and scope

Clause 8.13.β establishes three categories of contradiction — resolvable, residual, and ambient — and assigns each a different disposition. Resolvable contradictions are corrected on the spot by whichever clerk first notices them. Residual contradictions are sealed and shelved pending review by a Filing Officer. Ambient contradictions are permitted to remain in circulation, provided they are not permitted to accumulate.

The clause is best known for its closing proviso, quoted in nearly every subsequent commentary on the subject:

"A contradiction weighing less than one grain need not be resolved, only acknowledged. Acknowledgement shall be recorded in the margin nearest the contradiction, in ink, and dated. Contradictions acknowledged in this manner are considered to have been handled."

— Second Concordance, Clause 8.13.β, proviso 4

The proviso has no enforcement mechanism, a fact noted with approval by the Sub-Committee and with unreserved contempt by the Office of Severity Classifications, which has twice petitioned for its repeal.

Origin: the Margin Incident of Floor 311

The clause was written in response to a specific failure. In the autumn of 4,111, a clerk named Margin Clerk Ospar Dree undertook to resolve, personally and in sequence, every contradiction he encountered while recataloguing the eastern stacks of Floor 311. He worked for eleven days. On the twelfth he was found at his desk having acknowledged, in margins, on slips, and along the edges of his own forearms, some nine thousand minor contradictions, several of which had been created by the acknowledgements themselves.

The incident produced the first recorded instance of Contradiction Loading below the third storey, and required the temporary closure of the floor's western stair. Dree's subsequent grievance — that he had acted in the spirit of the Concordances and been penalized for diligence — is preserved in the Sub-Committee's minutes and is still cited by clerks asked to do anything.

Relationship to Clause 31

Clause 8.13.β is frequently confused with Clause 31 of the same Concordance, which governs meta-textual artifacts and is a far more consequential ordinance. The confusion arises because both clauses address the handling of unattributed material, and because the index to the Second Concordance lists them under a single heading due to a binding error never corrected.

The distinction is nonetheless firm. Clause 31 concerns artifacts that describe themselves; Clause 8.13.β concerns contradictions that do not describe anything at all. Clause 31 (practice) is applied only after a formal determination; Clause 8.13.β is applied by whoever is standing nearest.

Scholarly dispute

There is no consensus on whether acknowledgements made under proviso 4 constitute a record. Archivist Vol holds that they do not, arguing that an acknowledged contradiction remains ontologically unchanged and that the clause merely "teaches clerks to look at a hole and call the looking a repair" (Vol, Notes Toward a Cleaner Part II, folio 88). Vol further suggests that acknowledgements, being dated and signed, invite later readers to treat a handled contradiction as an unresolved one, thereby duplicating it — the same risk he identifies in Clause 3 (Retroactive Application).

The Office of Severity Classifications takes the opposite view, contending in its 4,119 memorandum that an acknowledgement is the resolution of a minor contradiction, since a minor contradiction has no content beyond its being noticed. The Office has proposed that proviso 4 be extended to contradictions of any weight, a proposal the Sub-Committee has declined to consider on six occasions without recording a reason.

Practical notes

Clause 8.13.β has been amended twice. The first amendment (4,134) restricted acknowledgement to the margin of the page bearing the contradiction, forbidding the practice of acknowledging by letter. The second (4,207) clarified that ambient contradictions may be left in place but must not be gathered, sorted, or arranged, following an incident on Floor 622 in which a junior cataloguer arranged some four hundred ambient contradictions into a rough chronology and produced a week of considerable difficulty for the Warrens.

Clerks working under the clause are reminded that ink must be allowed to dry before the volume is closed. The reminder appears in the standing instructions to the Second Concordance reading room and has been there, unaltered, since 4,134.

See also

Contradiction Protocol Contradiction Flagging The Protocol for Cross-Floor Contradiction Third Concordance, Clause VII Clause 47.b The Clause of Unwritten Authority