Which copy of the Gettysburg Address has 272 words?

[ELCore]

(10-22-2013 04:11 PM)irshgrl500 Wrote:  The Bliss copy is the version, which is currently displayed in the Lincoln Bedroom, at the White House, and it is 272 words, in length.

The Everett copy is also 272 words. I think the difference is in the word "battlefield" . In earlier versions, it is written as 2 words, battle field, and in the Bliss & Everett copies, it is either hyphenated, or written as one word. When it is hyphenated, it is counted as, one word.

Both of what I think of as the standard editions of Lincoln's writings, the 9-volume collected works (ed. Roy Basler) and the 2-volume Library of America set (ed. Don Fehrenbacher) have it "battle-field", thus 271 words. (The text engraved on the south wall of the Lincoln Memorial has "battlefield", but that precedes Basler's work.)

But we can actually see for ourselves. Smithsonian Exhibit of Bliss Copy (PDF). I think the hyphen has it, but not by much.