THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Word Archives
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • MORE
    • Cartoons
    • Retail Reviews
    • Resources
    • Clarifications
    • Accomplishments

. , :

5/4/2018

0 Comments

 
Aristophanes is now one of my favorite people in history. Well-renowned for his studies of Homer, he became head of the library of Alexandria around 200 BC. But there was a major problem with language at the time. It was hard to understand! There were no spaces, lowercase letters, or punctuation. This could get quite annoying, so Aristophanes decided to invent a whole new system of punctuation. Specifically, three different types of spaces between parts of sentences, but he was a pioneer in the field. The "comma" was the shortest pause, and was notated by a single dot in the middle of a line of text (this later drifted down and developed a curvature). The "colon" was the intermediate pause, and was notated by a single dot at the bottom of a line of text (another, middle dot was later added). The "period" was at the top of a line of text and was the longest kind of pause (this dropped to the bottom, of course). Although this was very rudimentary, all other punctuation would come from or be inspired by Aristophane's three pauses, so this is very cool.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Adam Aleksic, a freshman studying linguistics and government at Harvard University, has been described as the internet's sixth most famous etymologist. He also has disturbing interests in words, vexillology, geography, board games, limericks, and law.
      If I don't cover it soon, I probably already did it
    Submit
    CONFUSED?
      

    Archives

    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

Picture

A lexophile's sanctum

CONTACT: etymologynerd@gmail.com
TWITTER • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE • REDDIT • RSS
Home • Blog • Interesting Infographics • Retail Reviews • Cartoons • Clarifications • Word Archives • Resources • Accomplishments
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Word Archives
  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • MORE
    • Cartoons
    • Retail Reviews
    • Resources
    • Clarifications
    • Accomplishments