112 Andrew Wilson stylistic effects without changing the sense. However, one-word additions and omissions with stylistic effects outnumber “stylistic” substitutions and transpositions. Where omissions (or additions) of larger stretches of text are involved, the sense is more often affected than the style. Of the 2279 singular readings investigated, the style was affected in 794 cases. Among these readings, stylistically harsher readings outnum- bered stylistic more polished readings by 606 to 188 (a ratio of 76:24)50. We may therefore state that the traditional preference for the harsher reading is without foundation. Scribes tended to produce a terser and harsher text, not a smoother one. This is not so much a matter of statis- tical regularity as it is a matter of logical inevitability. It follows largely from the fact that scribes tended to omit rather than add to the text. The majority of these cases consisted of one word and produced only a harsher text. Corrections among Harder and Harsher Readings The results for corrections among the singulars catalogued in relation to the Harder and Harsher Reading canons were as follows: Nonsense Harder Sense Harder Style Neutral Easier Style Easier Sense 145 42 100 41 18 0 Correctors removed difficulties – it was their job description. They heavily tended to deal with nonsense and improve the sense of the text. Scribes, however, tended to do the exact opposite. They created difficul- ties; hence the need for correctors. When corrections amongst singular readings that had a stylistic effect upon the text were analyzed, there were 100 harsher readings corrected, as against 18 smoother readings corrected. Correctors themselves created 11 harsher singular readings and 7 smoother singular readings (61:39). Thus, the countervailing effect of correction was to heavily favour a smoother text, even more strongly than the original scribe’s effect was to produce a harsher text, although the correctors themselves also created additional harsher singular readings. Whether these patterns of correc- tion are the direct result of correctors making stylistic choices or focusing their attention on omissions and additions (in and of themselves) is hard to say. 50 These results were listed by chapter in the table shown earlier under Prefer the Harder Reading