1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:05,280 Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of 2 00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:14,319 Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 3 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:17,759 Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. 4 00:00:17,920 --> 00:00:21,200 Speaker 1: And in today's episode, I wanted to take a look 5 00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:25,319 Speaker 1: at a writing convention, and that is the paragraph or 6 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,240 Speaker 1: the paragraph break. I think there was a single moment 7 00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:33,000 Speaker 1: of genesis in my desire to do this episode, and 8 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:36,480 Speaker 1: it's that, Uh, you know, some number of weeks back, 9 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:39,120 Speaker 1: I was doing research for some episode and I ended 10 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:43,159 Speaker 1: up looking up an archived plane text version of an 11 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:46,080 Speaker 1: old book. Rob I'm sure you've had this issue on 12 00:00:46,159 --> 00:00:49,879 Speaker 1: the show before. So you get plain text and the 13 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:53,479 Speaker 1: text is there, but all the original paragraph breaks are 14 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,280 Speaker 1: messed up, like they're they're either in the wrong place 15 00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:59,360 Speaker 1: or there are no breaks, and I was like trying 16 00:00:59,400 --> 00:01:02,240 Speaker 1: to read it. I was just like, this is horrible. 17 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:05,440 Speaker 1: I hate this. Even though the whole text is here, 18 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:10,480 Speaker 1: I'm basically incapable of reading it. Somehow, the existence of 19 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:15,440 Speaker 1: paragraphs with reasonable breaks is what makes a massive text 20 00:01:15,520 --> 00:01:19,520 Speaker 1: physically consumable to me, right and and certainly if it 21 00:01:19,600 --> 00:01:22,240 Speaker 1: is supposed to be paragraphs, is supposed to have paragraph 22 00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:25,760 Speaker 1: breaks in it. Um It's like if someone were to 23 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:29,039 Speaker 1: bring a seven course meal to you and say here, 24 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,560 Speaker 1: here it is in stew form. Um, please enjoy it. 25 00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:34,399 Speaker 1: I mean. And it hasn't been blended up in this 26 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:36,280 Speaker 1: scenario at all. So it's not like it is it 27 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:39,120 Speaker 1: is garbled. All of it is still there. But here 28 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:41,120 Speaker 1: it is without the little breaks. Here it is just 29 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:43,640 Speaker 1: all you know, either either in the same pot or 30 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:45,680 Speaker 1: even just mashed together on the same plate. No, no, no, 31 00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:48,440 Speaker 1: I want these We need these breaks between these different 32 00:01:48,720 --> 00:01:51,800 Speaker 1: things that we're going to consume. Uh, there needs to 33 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:54,320 Speaker 1: be an order to to what is occurring, right, Why 34 00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:56,720 Speaker 1: not just put the tierramisiou in the clam chowder and 35 00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:59,920 Speaker 1: then you get it all at once? Um? Yeah. And 36 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:04,040 Speaker 1: so this got me thinking about paragraphs in general, and 37 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:08,359 Speaker 1: wondering about where they come from historically, and why we 38 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:10,960 Speaker 1: build them the way that we do, if there even 39 00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:13,520 Speaker 1: is a consistent way that we build them, and all 40 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:16,320 Speaker 1: kinds of questions like this, And one thing I thought 41 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:19,600 Speaker 1: might be interesting to get us kicked off today is 42 00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:23,880 Speaker 1: to just talk about the literary effect, the effect on 43 00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:26,680 Speaker 1: the reader when you're reading a book with a lot 44 00:02:26,760 --> 00:02:30,560 Speaker 1: of long paragraphs versus short paragraphs. Like, how does that 45 00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: change the experience of reading and the impression created. I'm 46 00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:38,360 Speaker 1: sure other people have different ways of answering this, but 47 00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:42,000 Speaker 1: one immediate distinction I thought of in my own reading 48 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,359 Speaker 1: experience has to do with the feeling of substance versus 49 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:49,240 Speaker 1: the feeling of momentum, and I would explain it like this. 50 00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:52,679 Speaker 1: When I think about good books with very short paragraphs, 51 00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:57,000 Speaker 1: I tend to think about readability and hooky noess. Like 52 00:02:57,440 --> 00:03:01,840 Speaker 1: you know, airport thriller novels. They tend have very short paragraphs, 53 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:04,720 Speaker 1: and those short paragraphs are I think effective for what 54 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:07,720 Speaker 1: they're meant to do. That they tend to make the 55 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:10,239 Speaker 1: text easy to read. They make it feel like it's 56 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,880 Speaker 1: fast moving and inviting. It wants to keep you reading, 57 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:17,560 Speaker 1: making you less likely to put the book down. Meanwhile, 58 00:03:17,639 --> 00:03:20,600 Speaker 1: when I think about good books with very long paragraphs, 59 00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:26,000 Speaker 1: I tend to think about literary richness, like obsessive observation 60 00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,680 Speaker 1: or description or insight texts that feel like they are 61 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:35,120 Speaker 1: packed with detail and texture and thoughtfulness. Um So, in 62 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:38,480 Speaker 1: trying to like balance out those two different advantages you 63 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,520 Speaker 1: get from different paragraph links, I came up with a 64 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,600 Speaker 1: kind of perhaps silly metaphor but I started thinking about 65 00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:47,560 Speaker 1: trips to bring groceries in from the car. You know, 66 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:49,240 Speaker 1: you ever go out shopping, you have a bunch of 67 00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:51,760 Speaker 1: different things, and you can, you know, you can take 68 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:54,240 Speaker 1: one or two bags each time, or you can try 69 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,120 Speaker 1: to do everything in one go, but sometimes that's impossible 70 00:03:57,120 --> 00:03:59,480 Speaker 1: and you have to stop halfway to the door. So 71 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:02,040 Speaker 1: like when you're paragraphs are too short, it's almost like 72 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:04,880 Speaker 1: you're trying to bring the groceries in one item at 73 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:08,480 Speaker 1: a time. Something just starts to feel kind of insubstantial 74 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:11,680 Speaker 1: and absurd about what you're doing. But if paragraphs are 75 00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,119 Speaker 1: too long, that's kind of like trying to bring everything 76 00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:16,440 Speaker 1: in in one trip and you just stop, like you 77 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:19,000 Speaker 1: have to put it down and decide, okay, I can't 78 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,760 Speaker 1: do this. So you're kind of balancing mobility, the mobility 79 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,359 Speaker 1: of carrying less with the substance of carrying more. I 80 00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:28,159 Speaker 1: think that's a good That's an interesting way of thinking 81 00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:31,080 Speaker 1: about it. That's certainly because because the other side of 82 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:33,919 Speaker 1: that is I'm instantly thinking of the person that is 83 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:37,880 Speaker 1: obscenely trying to carry all the groceries in in one go, 84 00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:40,520 Speaker 1: like you know, and I've I've I think I've tried 85 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:43,520 Speaker 1: to do this before. Where you're you're just you have 86 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:48,200 Speaker 1: multiple grocery bag straps on each hand, you have something 87 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:51,960 Speaker 1: on your arm cradling something. Yeah, and then yeah, I 88 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:54,559 Speaker 1: guess you're planning on opening the door with your foot 89 00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:56,840 Speaker 1: or just slamming into it or hoping there's somebody on 90 00:04:56,839 --> 00:04:59,160 Speaker 1: the other side to help you in. And here's the thing, 91 00:04:59,200 --> 00:05:02,360 Speaker 1: as the reader, like I'm either the door or I'm 92 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:04,320 Speaker 1: the person on the other side of the scenario, and 93 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:06,880 Speaker 1: you just would want to be like, calm down a 94 00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:09,960 Speaker 1: little bit, like I bought the book, or I I 95 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:12,360 Speaker 1: rented the book, or I borrowed the book from the library, 96 00:05:12,400 --> 00:05:14,840 Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. We can get to all this. 97 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:18,120 Speaker 1: We don't have to have it all in the first paragraph, right. 98 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:20,920 Speaker 1: And this is not I think this is not unique 99 00:05:20,960 --> 00:05:24,080 Speaker 1: to modern readers. I mean people who are writing handbooks 100 00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:28,680 Speaker 1: of composition and rhetoric in in centuries past warn that 101 00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:32,440 Speaker 1: overly long paragraphs have the effect of quote over taxing 102 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:37,240 Speaker 1: the reader. There's something about unbroken blocks of text that 103 00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:41,320 Speaker 1: just gets tiresome, and somehow, even though the text continues 104 00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:45,159 Speaker 1: either way, just putting more breaks in between, separating that 105 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:48,920 Speaker 1: in the smaller chunks. Smaller paragraphs somehow makes the text 106 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,800 Speaker 1: feel lighter and like you're just sort of like skipping 107 00:05:51,880 --> 00:05:53,960 Speaker 1: over it at a you know, at a breezy pace, 108 00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:57,360 Speaker 1: as opposed to getting bogged down and feeling this weight. 109 00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:00,640 Speaker 1: I was looking around for different writings on paragraphs and 110 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:05,560 Speaker 1: I actually came across the night paper titled writing Paragraphs 111 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:08,880 Speaker 1: by Tolkien at all uh, and it's it is j R. 112 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:11,960 Speaker 1: Tolkien himself and wow, weird. Weirdly enough, one of the 113 00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:16,080 Speaker 1: co authors was a professor at Memphis State in Tennessee. Uh. 114 00:06:16,080 --> 00:06:18,760 Speaker 1: I didn't get to the bottom of how these individuals 115 00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:21,440 Speaker 1: all come together on being credit on the same paper, 116 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:24,240 Speaker 1: but it gets into some of the basics and challenges 117 00:06:24,279 --> 00:06:28,200 Speaker 1: and goals of of teaching effective writing. But even in 118 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:31,039 Speaker 1: this paper, the authors point out that the unity of 119 00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:35,480 Speaker 1: a given paragraph is often illusory. A longer paragraph, they 120 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:38,800 Speaker 1: point out, can often be broken into without upsetting anything. 121 00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:40,640 Speaker 1: And they point out, for instance, this is often done 122 00:06:41,320 --> 00:06:44,560 Speaker 1: at the spirits, certainly at the editing phase and newspapers. Uh. 123 00:06:44,839 --> 00:06:46,760 Speaker 1: The the author wrote a paragraph it's a little bit 124 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:49,240 Speaker 1: too long looking on the screen, you just shop that 125 00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:51,120 Speaker 1: sucker in half. And a lot of times you can 126 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:54,159 Speaker 1: do that without any ill effect, And likewise they point 127 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:56,400 Speaker 1: out that the reverse is true. In many cases. You 128 00:06:56,440 --> 00:06:58,880 Speaker 1: can take shorter paragraphs and kind of combine them together 129 00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:02,360 Speaker 1: and you're not going do effectively break anything. So that's 130 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:04,280 Speaker 1: I think that's something interesting to keep in mind, even 131 00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:06,719 Speaker 1: though at the same time they are acknowledging that, yeah, 132 00:07:06,760 --> 00:07:10,040 Speaker 1: a lot of paragraph writing is about Okay, here's your 133 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:12,760 Speaker 1: this is the stuff we all learn in school, right 134 00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:17,000 Speaker 1: here is our our topic sentence. Then we have supporting sentences, 135 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:20,000 Speaker 1: and the paragraph is supposed to be this one concise 136 00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:23,000 Speaker 1: nugget of thought for us to consume. Well, that's a 137 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,840 Speaker 1: great transition to the next thing I wanted to get out, 138 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:28,840 Speaker 1: which is that you know, of course we're talking about 139 00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:31,960 Speaker 1: reporting our subjective feelings as a reader on you know, 140 00:07:32,400 --> 00:07:35,480 Speaker 1: reading paragraphs of different links. But the other side of 141 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:39,040 Speaker 1: the approach to paragraphs is the more prescriptive approach. You know, 142 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:42,840 Speaker 1: here's what a paragraph must do, with the most famous 143 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:46,440 Speaker 1: or uh if you like, infamous prescription being that a 144 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:50,720 Speaker 1: paragraph must develop a single idea, and that idea must 145 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:53,240 Speaker 1: be announced near the beginning of the paragraph in a 146 00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:57,840 Speaker 1: topic sentence, and then there must be supporting sentences. Uh, 147 00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:00,600 Speaker 1: and you know, we can talk more about the prescriptive 148 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,320 Speaker 1: idea of the paragraph later, I guess. But anyway, I 149 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:06,880 Speaker 1: find it interesting to consider the surface level paradox that 150 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,280 Speaker 1: paragraphs are absolutely essential to most modern readers. I think 151 00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:13,680 Speaker 1: you and I are probably not unique in this. Like 152 00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:16,440 Speaker 1: the prospect of reading a book or even a long 153 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:20,760 Speaker 1: article that's just a single, unbroken block of text makes 154 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,880 Speaker 1: my blood run cold. I could not do it. And 155 00:08:23,960 --> 00:08:28,200 Speaker 1: yet it is difficult to explain exactly what the rules 156 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:32,920 Speaker 1: are for creating paragraphs like they're essential, but but attempts 157 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:37,559 Speaker 1: to codify them in a universal way are, I would argue, 158 00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:40,800 Speaker 1: and I think we will argue later on pretty much 159 00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:44,480 Speaker 1: universally failures at at least at describing the way paragraphs 160 00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:48,000 Speaker 1: are actually used in popular writing. You know, so, questions 161 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:50,680 Speaker 1: about where do we break the line and why are 162 00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,679 Speaker 1: in some ways still kind of elusive, even though breaking 163 00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:57,960 Speaker 1: the line is a must. Now. I don't know how 164 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:01,000 Speaker 1: successful this will be, but I did at think is 165 00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:05,800 Speaker 1: it possible to mention favorite paragraph breaks and writing? I 166 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:09,400 Speaker 1: was struggling to have any like Obviously, I have a 167 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:13,199 Speaker 1: lot of bits of writing that are a paragraph, But um, 168 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:15,800 Speaker 1: I was struggling to think of examples where the break 169 00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:18,640 Speaker 1: of the paragraph is what I admire in the writing, 170 00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:20,600 Speaker 1: as essential as it is to a piece of writing 171 00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:23,640 Speaker 1: as a whole. Yeah, I was once you brought this up. 172 00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:25,839 Speaker 1: I was thinking on and I'm on my own here, 173 00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:27,640 Speaker 1: and I was thinking, well, okay, what are what are 174 00:09:27,679 --> 00:09:29,280 Speaker 1: bits that stand out to me in writing? And I 175 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:31,040 Speaker 1: found that a lot of times the things that come 176 00:09:31,080 --> 00:09:35,080 Speaker 1: to me the easiest are opening lines or sometimes closing 177 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:39,440 Speaker 1: lines from from novels, and a lot of those A 178 00:09:39,440 --> 00:09:41,560 Speaker 1: lot of the time, if not all the time. It's 179 00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:45,000 Speaker 1: super short. It's often not even perhaps a true clinical 180 00:09:45,040 --> 00:09:48,600 Speaker 1: paragraph in that in that it is actually just one line. 181 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:52,040 Speaker 1: And like a couple of examples that I instantly thought 182 00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:54,960 Speaker 1: of Dante's Inferno as a great one in them. And 183 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:57,400 Speaker 1: of course we're getting into poetry here, we're getting into stances, 184 00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:00,880 Speaker 1: but uh, it's effectively a in tents in the middle 185 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:03,440 Speaker 1: of the journey of our life. I came to myself 186 00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,000 Speaker 1: in a dark wood for the straight way was lost. 187 00:10:06,679 --> 00:10:09,160 Speaker 1: An even better example, and this is from an actual novel. 188 00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:12,960 Speaker 1: This is from Alan rogue Grils The Voyeur. It just 189 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,200 Speaker 1: begins with a short sentence. It was as if no 190 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:18,960 Speaker 1: one had heard. And I always loved that one because 191 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:22,400 Speaker 1: it's so evocative, like what what is the thing that 192 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:24,960 Speaker 1: no one had had heard? Why had they not heard it? 193 00:10:25,360 --> 00:10:27,520 Speaker 1: And who is making or what is making the sound 194 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:29,880 Speaker 1: like it? It asked so many questions that I have 195 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:33,360 Speaker 1: to keep moving. Another good one Fahrenheit four fifty one 196 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:36,000 Speaker 1: by Ray brad Berry. It was a pleasure to burn. 197 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:39,240 Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting, So these pros works. I've read these, 198 00:10:39,320 --> 00:10:42,640 Speaker 1: but I uh I did not recall the the opening 199 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:46,120 Speaker 1: paragraphs being a single line. Yeah. A couple of other 200 00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:49,360 Speaker 1: ones that came to mind. Uh nearrom Answer by William Gibson. 201 00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:52,160 Speaker 1: The sky above the port was the color of television 202 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:55,400 Speaker 1: turned to a dead channel. Or this is a famous 203 00:10:55,400 --> 00:10:57,360 Speaker 1: one as well, from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 204 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:00,400 Speaker 1: by Hunter S. Thompson. We were somewhere around are still 205 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:02,320 Speaker 1: on the edge of the desert when the drugs began 206 00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:05,240 Speaker 1: to take hold. Uh yeah, that's that's another good one. 207 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:08,920 Speaker 1: So you're a fan of the the short, possibly single 208 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:12,880 Speaker 1: sentence opening paragraph in fiction at least? Yeah, Yeah, there's 209 00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:15,480 Speaker 1: something about this, like that one line. It's really they're 210 00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:18,600 Speaker 1: really either either. It really makes me think and establishes 211 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:21,480 Speaker 1: kind of a vibe, or in some cases it establishes 212 00:11:21,520 --> 00:11:26,040 Speaker 1: a different definite setting or scenario, whether succinctly. For instance, 213 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:29,720 Speaker 1: the Gibson one to a certain is really more about vibe. 214 00:11:30,280 --> 00:11:33,559 Speaker 1: Um the Voyeur quote is more about vibe. The Hunter S. 215 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,280 Speaker 1: Thompson one is vibe and setting. It gives you a 216 00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:38,720 Speaker 1: sense of where we're going and sort of what is 217 00:11:38,760 --> 00:11:41,920 Speaker 1: going on. I was, obviously I'm a big fan of Dune, 218 00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:43,680 Speaker 1: so I thought, well, what was the first line of 219 00:11:43,679 --> 00:11:45,280 Speaker 1: doing I can't remember it off the top of my head. 220 00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:50,320 Speaker 1: There if you skip past the quote from from the Princess, uh, 221 00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:53,199 Speaker 1: the first line is in the week before their departure 222 00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:56,520 Speaker 1: to Aracus, when all the final scurrying about had reached 223 00:11:56,520 --> 00:11:59,920 Speaker 1: a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit 224 00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,000 Speaker 1: the mother of the boy Paul. Now that's that's not 225 00:12:03,040 --> 00:12:05,040 Speaker 1: a paragraph that I would just say, oh, I put 226 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:07,040 Speaker 1: that on a T shirt for me, or or can 227 00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:09,320 Speaker 1: I have that inscribed in my flesh? But it is 228 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:13,120 Speaker 1: a great, a great opening, the opening line that just 229 00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:16,880 Speaker 1: establishes exactly what is going on and gives you, you know, 230 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:19,000 Speaker 1: it gives you some mystery. I guess you don't know 231 00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,439 Speaker 1: what Iracus is at this point, and you were instantly wondering, well, 232 00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:26,400 Speaker 1: who is this old crone? And it sets the story 233 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:29,080 Speaker 1: and it does a good job of just just having 234 00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:33,080 Speaker 1: dived directly into the action. Really, but I couldn't remember 235 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:36,280 Speaker 1: or just looking around really quickly find an example of 236 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:39,880 Speaker 1: a of a multi sentence paragraph. Uh, particularly an opening 237 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:43,880 Speaker 1: paragraph from a work that I held to a really 238 00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:45,880 Speaker 1: high standard. I don't know how about you, Joe. I'm 239 00:12:45,880 --> 00:12:47,680 Speaker 1: sure if I had more time thinking about this, I 240 00:12:47,679 --> 00:12:49,960 Speaker 1: could come up with good examples. But but I have not, 241 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:53,000 Speaker 1: because again, I think paragraph breaks are essential, but I 242 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:58,160 Speaker 1: have not scrutinized individual breaks enough that it that they 243 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:00,920 Speaker 1: really like. Stick with me. There there's something that is essential, 244 00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:03,559 Speaker 1: but they mostly to me become invisible in a text. 245 00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:07,920 Speaker 1: I don't remember where the line breaks happen. Usually, Yeah, 246 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:11,120 Speaker 1: if a paragraph is is put together effectively and it's 247 00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:13,320 Speaker 1: doing its job, you don't notice. That's one of the 248 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:17,000 Speaker 1: things about it. Uh, it's it's it's I've never had 249 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:19,800 Speaker 1: the experience of reading something to think, yeah, that's a 250 00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:22,160 Speaker 1: great place for a paragraph break. I might think the 251 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:24,880 Speaker 1: other the opposite of that, I might think, couldn't we 252 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:27,880 Speaker 1: have broken this up a little bit more, Um, Frank 253 00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:30,400 Speaker 1: Herbert or whoever I'm happening to read, And it's not 254 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:33,560 Speaker 1: necessarily I was thinking about this as well, like what 255 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:36,880 Speaker 1: is the experience of reading a text that is not 256 00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:40,560 Speaker 1: just one big breakless paragraph but has but does have 257 00:13:40,679 --> 00:13:45,880 Speaker 1: some rather expansive paragraphs. I find that sometimes when I'm 258 00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:48,079 Speaker 1: looking at this page, I still have a gut instinct 259 00:13:48,840 --> 00:13:51,720 Speaker 1: that it looks like work, Like you know what I'm saying, Like, 260 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:53,480 Speaker 1: even though the thing is, if it's a book that 261 00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:56,880 Speaker 1: I'm even halfway interested in, it's not like big paragraphs 262 00:13:56,880 --> 00:13:58,520 Speaker 1: are a stumbling block to me. It's not like I 263 00:13:58,559 --> 00:14:01,160 Speaker 1: get lost in them or I'm not going to finish them. 264 00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:03,839 Speaker 1: It's not like I need to to, you know, artificially 265 00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:07,080 Speaker 1: throwing paragraph breaks from my own reading. Uh. It works 266 00:14:07,120 --> 00:14:08,920 Speaker 1: just fine. But there's something maybe it's like a call 267 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:13,800 Speaker 1: back to uh, to early reading experiences, but they're sort 268 00:14:13,840 --> 00:14:17,439 Speaker 1: of that initial uh impact in my psyche where it's like, 269 00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:20,200 Speaker 1: these paragraphs are too long? What is this author doing? Oh? 270 00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:23,480 Speaker 1: This is funny though, because inserting your own paragraph breaks 271 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:27,120 Speaker 1: in the work of an author who otherwise creates really 272 00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:31,680 Speaker 1: unholy chunks. Uh. This is something that some like teachers 273 00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:34,960 Speaker 1: actually do, and one specific writer I was reading for 274 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:38,240 Speaker 1: this episode talks about doing so. One of the main 275 00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,720 Speaker 1: things I was reading in preparation for this was a 276 00:14:40,760 --> 00:14:44,920 Speaker 1: great essay by a scholar named Richard Hughes Gibson called 277 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:47,880 Speaker 1: Past Lives of the Paragraph which was published in the 278 00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:52,640 Speaker 1: Hedgehog Review. That's an interdisciplinary culture journal based out of 279 00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:55,080 Speaker 1: the University of Virginia. And I'll refer back to this 280 00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:58,800 Speaker 1: article several times in the episode, but towards the end 281 00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:02,680 Speaker 1: of his article, Gibson tells a story about how several 282 00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:08,120 Speaker 1: years back he was um trying to prepare reading for students. Uh. 283 00:15:08,160 --> 00:15:11,160 Speaker 1: And this was by a critic who, uh, well, I'll 284 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:14,800 Speaker 1: just hear read from from what Gibson writes, quote said 285 00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:19,040 Speaker 1: critic had a pension for composing labyrinthine paragraphs, which I 286 00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:22,800 Speaker 1: now realized would quickly exhaust my students. Although I felt 287 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:26,120 Speaker 1: a tinge of compunction about tampering with those paragraphs, I 288 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:28,480 Speaker 1: set to work and, knowing this was the only way 289 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,600 Speaker 1: of salvaging the reading. The breaks came easily, though, and 290 00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:34,320 Speaker 1: I soon found the work enjoyable. I was seeing the 291 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:37,440 Speaker 1: piece in a new way, and I quote discovered several 292 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:41,720 Speaker 1: remarkable sentences that I had overlooked while navigating my way 293 00:15:41,760 --> 00:15:44,760 Speaker 1: through the labyrinths UH. And then he also says that 294 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,320 Speaker 1: this did indeed make the this article much more enjoyable 295 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:50,360 Speaker 1: for the students, and he just started doing it in 296 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,360 Speaker 1: all his other classes. When somebody has huge paragraphs, he 297 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:55,360 Speaker 1: would just go in and edit them to add in 298 00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:58,560 Speaker 1: paragraph breaks and you could see. So, I don't know, 299 00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:00,960 Speaker 1: an author might be mad to find out somebody was 300 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:03,160 Speaker 1: doing that to their work, but you can also clearly 301 00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:05,840 Speaker 1: see the advantage. Yeah, yeah, it may. It does make 302 00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:08,280 Speaker 1: me wonder if there are new editions of books that 303 00:16:08,320 --> 00:16:11,200 Speaker 1: come out that that engage in this, or is it 304 00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:16,000 Speaker 1: considered forbidden? You know, I don't know, I'd be I'd 305 00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:19,000 Speaker 1: be very curious to hear about this. Um. I was. 306 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:22,000 Speaker 1: When I was looking around for some other info about this, 307 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:26,000 Speaker 1: I did run across UH a paper title but how 308 00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:29,640 Speaker 1: to write a thesis according to umberto Echo by umberto Echo, 309 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:33,360 Speaker 1: And in it he briefly touches on the paragraph UH, 310 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,400 Speaker 1: and he U he writes the following quote begin new paragraphs. 311 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:41,040 Speaker 1: Often do so when logically necessary and when the pace 312 00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:43,440 Speaker 1: of the text requires it. But the more you do it, 313 00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,240 Speaker 1: the better. That's funny because Echo has a tendency to 314 00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:50,320 Speaker 1: write some really long paragraphs. But I mean, in his 315 00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:53,360 Speaker 1: in his defense, a lot of his long paragraphs are 316 00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:56,240 Speaker 1: full of exactly that quality of richness that I was 317 00:16:56,480 --> 00:17:00,400 Speaker 1: mentioning earlier, Like the long paragraphs feel substantial old, They're 318 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:05,119 Speaker 1: full of detail and insight. Yeah. This, of course, I 319 00:17:05,240 --> 00:17:07,320 Speaker 1: was thinking about other authors that I've really loved over 320 00:17:07,320 --> 00:17:09,720 Speaker 1: the years, and I started thinking about Cormick McCarthy, of course, 321 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:13,160 Speaker 1: who is often very succinct, especially in his later works. 322 00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:15,760 Speaker 1: So really most of his works past, like the first 323 00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:19,520 Speaker 1: novel um its Name leaves me at the moment, but 324 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:24,320 Speaker 1: his first novel is a little bit denser. But but 325 00:17:24,320 --> 00:17:26,040 Speaker 1: but a lot of his later work, especially with more 326 00:17:26,040 --> 00:17:28,560 Speaker 1: recent work, is often characterized by being just you know, 327 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:34,120 Speaker 1: very succinct short sentences, uh no quotation marks. But occasionally 328 00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:37,080 Speaker 1: you get a nice like super run on long sentence 329 00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:41,040 Speaker 1: that is essentially like a big paragraph that is almost 330 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:43,600 Speaker 1: the opposite of what we're talking about here, where it 331 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:46,080 Speaker 1: just keeps going and going, but at the same time 332 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:48,960 Speaker 1: it has a rhythm to it and uh, an intensity 333 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:51,640 Speaker 1: and the mere fact that it won't end is like 334 00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:55,280 Speaker 1: like it's like a crazed thought being poured directly into 335 00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:57,880 Speaker 1: your brain and you can't quite turn it off. Yeah, 336 00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,000 Speaker 1: long paragraphs can definitely lend themselves to a kind of obsessive, 337 00:18:01,119 --> 00:18:05,160 Speaker 1: immersive or stream of consciousness quality to the text. It's, uh, 338 00:18:05,240 --> 00:18:08,040 Speaker 1: you know, when you are like stuck deep in somebody 339 00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:10,800 Speaker 1: else's brain and you're not coming up for air, that 340 00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:13,800 Speaker 1: that's often going to be a long paragraph. Yeah. Yeah, 341 00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:17,080 Speaker 1: I mean it's almost like there's a conversational aspect to 342 00:18:17,359 --> 00:18:20,840 Speaker 1: paragraph breaks, like this is the amount of of text 343 00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:23,760 Speaker 1: that is occurring before the speaker pauses, has a sip 344 00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:26,840 Speaker 1: of their beverage. Gives you an opportunity to to think 345 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:29,639 Speaker 1: or say something in return. But it's just that paragraph. 346 00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:39,240 Speaker 1: Then perhaps you're being preached at thank thank um, I 347 00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:43,679 Speaker 1: was thinking of I also was thinking, Okay, obviously, paragraph breaks. 348 00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:45,480 Speaker 1: I think we all agree that these are great. But 349 00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:48,800 Speaker 1: surely there's somebody out there who's gotten a bit experimental 350 00:18:48,800 --> 00:18:51,600 Speaker 1: and decided I will craft a work of fiction that 351 00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:55,879 Speaker 1: has no paragraph breaks. And I didn't. I don't remember 352 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,160 Speaker 1: every encountering anything like this. I've certainly read books that 353 00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:02,280 Speaker 1: for instance, don't have quotation marks for dialogue, or I 354 00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:05,880 Speaker 1: think I've read books that don't have intentions on new paragraphs. 355 00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:08,040 Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember what this would have been. I 356 00:19:08,040 --> 00:19:11,680 Speaker 1: think it was an Anthony Burchase book, but I don't 357 00:19:12,119 --> 00:19:15,480 Speaker 1: recall I've I've certainly read books where you have, you know, 358 00:19:15,520 --> 00:19:18,439 Speaker 1: large sections written in fictional slang, it's et cetera. But 359 00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:21,840 Speaker 1: I've never encountered anything that is one massive chunk of text. 360 00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:24,560 Speaker 1: I looked around to see if such a thing existed, 361 00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:27,040 Speaker 1: and I did find some threads on like a creative 362 00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:30,720 Speaker 1: writing board message board where someone was like, Hey, I'm 363 00:19:30,760 --> 00:19:34,359 Speaker 1: thinking of writing something with no paragraph breaks. What does 364 00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,760 Speaker 1: everyone think? And uh, there were some great answers. You know, 365 00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:40,040 Speaker 1: people were like, well, I think it's gonna be hard 366 00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:42,440 Speaker 1: for folks to digest. I think it's gonna you know, 367 00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:46,159 Speaker 1: they're gonna potentially recoil from seeing that big, massive block 368 00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,440 Speaker 1: of text. And and so it was. It was interesting 369 00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:50,400 Speaker 1: because yeah, there's so many things you can you can 370 00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:54,280 Speaker 1: break and play with as a writer potentially, uh, and 371 00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:56,639 Speaker 1: and more so if you know what you're doing. But 372 00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 1: but when it comes to the paragraph break, it does 373 00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,560 Speaker 1: seem there is something from the modern standpoint anyway, that 374 00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:04,840 Speaker 1: is essential about it. Yes, And I think this will 375 00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:07,280 Speaker 1: make a great transition to talking a bit about the 376 00:20:07,359 --> 00:20:11,600 Speaker 1: history of the paragraph, where paragraphs come from, because if 377 00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:14,520 Speaker 1: you go back far enough in in history, you're going 378 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:18,440 Speaker 1: to find a lot of literature that is made entirely 379 00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:22,679 Speaker 1: with that block of text mentality. Man, you hate big 380 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:25,960 Speaker 1: blocky masses of text. Look at like an ancient Greek 381 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:30,120 Speaker 1: men you script and just feel the chill. Yeah, that's 382 00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:33,000 Speaker 1: and I was, I was looking at some of these examples, 383 00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:35,160 Speaker 1: and and so I couldn't help but think a lot 384 00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:37,720 Speaker 1: about the medium involved too. So like if you go 385 00:20:37,760 --> 00:20:41,080 Speaker 1: back and look at super old examples of writing that 386 00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:45,040 Speaker 1: have survived, you're looking at things like oracle bones, which 387 00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:47,960 Speaker 1: you know, often times you're dealing with with like say 388 00:20:47,960 --> 00:20:49,800 Speaker 1: the bones from a turtle, part of the shell, that 389 00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:52,639 Speaker 1: sort of thing with inscriptions on it, or you're dealing 390 00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:56,919 Speaker 1: with with like wooden strips. You see that sometimes from 391 00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:01,280 Speaker 1: from from from from from you know, Indian tradition. There's also, 392 00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:05,280 Speaker 1: of course the use of clay tablets, and a lot 393 00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:07,800 Speaker 1: of times you're you're you probably have to realize, okay, 394 00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:11,399 Speaker 1: this is this was relatively expensive and consumed a lot 395 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:13,520 Speaker 1: of time and energy, So you would want to fit 396 00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:15,399 Speaker 1: as much text on one of those as possible. And 397 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:17,679 Speaker 1: at the same time, there's only so much text you 398 00:21:17,720 --> 00:21:21,120 Speaker 1: could get on there, you know, like how many thoughts 399 00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:27,400 Speaker 1: could you effectively encode into an oracle bone? Um, even 400 00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:29,439 Speaker 1: if you're in even if what you're putting down is 401 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:31,879 Speaker 1: certainly maybe not a diary entry, but it's more about 402 00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:34,760 Speaker 1: just recording figures and facts and that sort of thing. Well, 403 00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,480 Speaker 1: I do think a lot of the conventions of writing 404 00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:43,639 Speaker 1: might be contingent on differences between a a document scarcity 405 00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:47,000 Speaker 1: culture and a document rich culture, which I think we 406 00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:48,760 Speaker 1: you know, it sort of came up when we were 407 00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:53,520 Speaker 1: talking about the history of technologies for duplicating documents. Um 408 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,600 Speaker 1: that you know, people just have different ways of approaching 409 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:01,479 Speaker 1: writing when written documents or something that is expensive and 410 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:05,160 Speaker 1: scarce versus when they're just you know, cheap to make 411 00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:08,159 Speaker 1: and all over the place. Yeah. So yeah, from our 412 00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,240 Speaker 1: modern standpoint, I was I was trying to think of 413 00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:13,640 Speaker 1: what is my relationship with paragraph breaks, and I tend 414 00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:15,280 Speaker 1: to think of it as kind of like the breath 415 00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:18,439 Speaker 1: of the text, you know, it's the fluctuating intensity of 416 00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:22,280 Speaker 1: the the author's mental process. H. And I also feel that, 417 00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,160 Speaker 1: you know, with a very visual mind, and and one 418 00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,720 Speaker 1: hone for for fiction reading by film viewing to a 419 00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:29,840 Speaker 1: large degree, I think, you know, like I was viewing 420 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,400 Speaker 1: films and viewing TV before I was reading, and and 421 00:22:33,440 --> 00:22:35,760 Speaker 1: so to a certain extent, the paragraph breaks are also 422 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,160 Speaker 1: sort of like stage direction, like look at this, now, 423 00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:41,200 Speaker 1: look at this, and they can help drive home shifts 424 00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:46,080 Speaker 1: in tone, intensity and character and so forth. Um. So it's, 425 00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:48,800 Speaker 1: you know, from our modern standpoint, the format is part 426 00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:52,280 Speaker 1: of the signal. Strip the format away, and the signal 427 00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:54,840 Speaker 1: is degraded, like that big block of text. If you 428 00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,840 Speaker 1: take any given work, um, you know, you take up it. Certainly, 429 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:00,760 Speaker 1: if you take something like got any of the books 430 00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,399 Speaker 1: that we've discussed so far, uh, and you take all 431 00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:05,800 Speaker 1: the paragraph breaks out, it's not going to be the same, 432 00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:09,560 Speaker 1: because it's like the breath patterns of the voice speaking 433 00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:12,639 Speaker 1: to you are altered. Uh. But what if the text 434 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,119 Speaker 1: is written in such a way that the characters, the symbols, 435 00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:18,879 Speaker 1: and the words alone are the signal. How do you 436 00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,000 Speaker 1: denote shifts in subject matter? How do you do the 437 00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:25,800 Speaker 1: things that paragraph breaks do? Uh. And and and also 438 00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:28,800 Speaker 1: like where, where and how does that emerge out of 439 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:35,080 Speaker 1: our written language traditions? Yeah, and to imagine documents where 440 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,920 Speaker 1: the signal is really just the sequence of the characters, 441 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,720 Speaker 1: like the letters in the words. A great thing to 442 00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:46,040 Speaker 1: look at is actual ancient Greek and Roman documents. Uh. 443 00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:49,520 Speaker 1: These things used to often be written on papyrus scrolls, 444 00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,359 Speaker 1: So remember these would not be books like ours with 445 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,880 Speaker 1: flippable pages. The format with flippable pages like we used 446 00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,640 Speaker 1: today is called a codex. The scroll is the one 447 00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:03,560 Speaker 1: continuous sheet, and text on the scrolls of papyrus was 448 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,960 Speaker 1: generally written until until more like in the medieval period 449 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:12,520 Speaker 1: in a method called scriptio continua. And this means there 450 00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:17,600 Speaker 1: is no punctuation between sentences and there are no spaces 451 00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:21,560 Speaker 1: between words. No spaces between words is up to you 452 00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:25,200 Speaker 1: to figure out where one word stops in another one starts. Uh. 453 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,760 Speaker 1: They don't have punctuation between sentences, and they very likely 454 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:34,359 Speaker 1: don't have paragraph breaks, but there might be something in 455 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:39,000 Speaker 1: there to signal some kind of transition to help you out. Now, 456 00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,840 Speaker 1: is this as as this was a written language of symbols, 457 00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,280 Speaker 1: what did we do when we turn to symbols? To 458 00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:47,840 Speaker 1: denote these shifts. I was initially reading about this in 459 00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,439 Speaker 1: the Origin of the Pill Crow a k A the 460 00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:56,159 Speaker 1: Strange paragraph symbol by Jimmy Stamp for Smithsonian in and 461 00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,120 Speaker 1: Stamp rights that if we go back to around two CE, 462 00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:04,200 Speaker 1: we'd find paragraphs quote unquote which could loosely be understood 463 00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,679 Speaker 1: as changes in topics, speaker, or stanza that were separated 464 00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:13,879 Speaker 1: by various symbols that scribes had developed independently out of 465 00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:15,959 Speaker 1: the need for such breaks, but without any kind of 466 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:20,399 Speaker 1: top down consistency. So, uh, the you know, scribes here 467 00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,680 Speaker 1: in this part of Europe might be using one thing. 468 00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:26,000 Speaker 1: Over here they're using another thing, just different traditions. Uh, 469 00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:30,680 Speaker 1: different symbols emerging Stamp rights quote. Some used unfamiliar symbols 470 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:33,879 Speaker 1: that can't easily be translated into a typed blog post. 471 00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,120 Speaker 1: Some used something as simple as a single line, while 472 00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:41,200 Speaker 1: other used the K for caput for the Latin word 473 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,560 Speaker 1: for head. Languages change spellings evolved, and by the twelfth 474 00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,359 Speaker 1: century scribes abandoned the K in favor of the C 475 00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:53,360 Speaker 1: for capitula little head to divide text into capitula, also 476 00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,760 Speaker 1: known as chapters. Like the treble cleft, the pill crow 477 00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:01,239 Speaker 1: evolved due to the inconsistencies inherent in hand drawing. As 478 00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,520 Speaker 1: it became more widely used, the c gained a vertical 479 00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,880 Speaker 1: line in keeping with the latest rubrication trends and other 480 00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,280 Speaker 1: more elaborate embellishments, eventually becoming the character scene at the 481 00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,119 Speaker 1: top of this post. And the character in question is 482 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,000 Speaker 1: the pill crow, which you can you can all look 483 00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,400 Speaker 1: look this up if you're not envisioning it already. It's 484 00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:24,520 Speaker 1: this curious, slightly ornate symbol that looks kind of like 485 00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,040 Speaker 1: a backwards P with a with a stalk made out 486 00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,200 Speaker 1: of two vertical lines, and the hollow of the P 487 00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,679 Speaker 1: is often filled in, so that's solid. Does that Does 488 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:39,240 Speaker 1: that seem like a reasonable um description of this strange symbol. Yeah, 489 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:42,480 Speaker 1: It's the thing that I remember first seeing when I 490 00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,680 Speaker 1: was like trying to edit documents in an early version 491 00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:49,200 Speaker 1: of Microsoft Word and I accidentally clicked some setting where 492 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,080 Speaker 1: suddenly every line break had one of these, and I 493 00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,320 Speaker 1: was like, ah, how do I make them go away? Uh? 494 00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,640 Speaker 1: But in fact, it used to be quite common for say, 495 00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:03,040 Speaker 1: medieval manuscripts to be full of these symbols. Yeah. Yeah, 496 00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,719 Speaker 1: And indeed, indeed, I think most of modern readers are 497 00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,040 Speaker 1: going to be familiar with this from doing the same thing, 498 00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:11,280 Speaker 1: clicking on the wrong thing in the word processor and 499 00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:13,600 Speaker 1: seeing all the pill crows, seeing all the little machine 500 00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,560 Speaker 1: oils that are making paragraph breaks possible. Um. I think 501 00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,199 Speaker 1: there are also some some modern legal and academic writing 502 00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,960 Speaker 1: uses of the pill crow. But but it's you know, 503 00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,600 Speaker 1: it's used in web publishing, it's used in proofreading. But 504 00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,040 Speaker 1: it has this origin in just a way to break 505 00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:36,440 Speaker 1: up thoughts. Yes, And so strangely enough, the word paragraph 506 00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,920 Speaker 1: though now the word refers to a chunk of text itself. 507 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:47,400 Speaker 1: The word actually comes from the Greek originally paragraphos, which 508 00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,199 Speaker 1: means written beside, you know, to right beside something. And 509 00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,440 Speaker 1: that comes from the fact that originally paragraph breaks come 510 00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:58,840 Speaker 1: from this practice of making some kind of mark in 511 00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,000 Speaker 1: the margin of a document. So you'd have like a 512 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,679 Speaker 1: papyrus scroll, it's just got this big, unbroken chunk of 513 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,600 Speaker 1: letters just marching down the page. And the way you 514 00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,360 Speaker 1: signal some kind of transition. And as you said, Rob, 515 00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,479 Speaker 1: it wasn't consistent. It wasn't like there were, you know, 516 00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:18,879 Speaker 1: stable rules for when you use the paragraph as and 517 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,360 Speaker 1: when you don't. It just means something is changing here. 518 00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,520 Speaker 1: Maybe it's a change a new sentence begins on this line, 519 00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:28,520 Speaker 1: or maybe it's that there's a change in speakers in 520 00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:32,440 Speaker 1: a drama or a philosophical dialogue or something, or change 521 00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,959 Speaker 1: of topic. It's just something is different here. And originally 522 00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,640 Speaker 1: that's this line, just like a dash in the margin, 523 00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:41,440 Speaker 1: and then over time it changes into these letters you're 524 00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:43,680 Speaker 1: talking about, like the K or the C in in 525 00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,480 Speaker 1: Latin manuscripts, and then eventually the C gets these bars 526 00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:49,880 Speaker 1: and it becomes the pill crow. But I think this 527 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,920 Speaker 1: is all originally derived from this paragraph as marker. Just 528 00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,960 Speaker 1: the dash in the margin says something's different now. Yeah, yeah, 529 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,520 Speaker 1: this this post I was looking at by Amp. He's 530 00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:05,640 Speaker 1: citing Keith Houston's Shady Characters, The Secret the Secret Life 531 00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:10,800 Speaker 1: of punctuation symbols and other typographical marks, and it gets 532 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:15,640 Speaker 1: into like basically the the death of the pill Crow. 533 00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:17,640 Speaker 1: Where does the pill Crow go? And it's actually a 534 00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,440 Speaker 1: pretty interesting story because basically what ends up happening in 535 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,520 Speaker 1: the medieval period is the ring used more and more, 536 00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:28,280 Speaker 1: but then they start to sort of vanish in the 537 00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,160 Speaker 1: late medieval period, and the main reason is that you 538 00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,800 Speaker 1: have texts being copied, uh, you know, that was how 539 00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,400 Speaker 1: you reproduce texts, as we've discussed in the show before. 540 00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:42,880 Speaker 1: And you had these pill crows which had become increasingly 541 00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:47,160 Speaker 1: artistic and ornamental in nature. And when you had things 542 00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:49,600 Speaker 1: like that in a manuscript that was being copied, well, 543 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:52,000 Speaker 1: somebody else had to come back in and add those 544 00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:55,200 Speaker 1: in later. You just had to leave a space for them. Um. 545 00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:57,480 Speaker 1: And that's uh, that's the job that would fall to 546 00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,840 Speaker 1: the rubricators. They'd be the ones that come back in 547 00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:02,479 Speaker 1: and add the read ink or other special effects that 548 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,320 Speaker 1: need to be a part of this you know, illuminated 549 00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:09,320 Speaker 1: manuscript that's being copied. That's that's actually where their name 550 00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,320 Speaker 1: comes from. Rubric is from the Latin meaning red, So 551 00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,440 Speaker 1: like the word rubric is derived from the idea of 552 00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,440 Speaker 1: a heading in a document that might be written and 553 00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,920 Speaker 1: read because of these these people, the rubricators, who are 554 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:25,520 Speaker 1: using red ink. Yeah, they It sounds kind of nefarious, 555 00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,040 Speaker 1: doesn't it, the rubricators. Um, I wonder if anyone has 556 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,840 Speaker 1: has used that in a nefarious fashion and in some 557 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:37,960 Speaker 1: sort of strange fiction before the Red Letterman. But but anyway, Yeah, 558 00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,360 Speaker 1: so you have all these these these blanks that have 559 00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:43,080 Speaker 1: to be left when you're copying the manuscripts. And the 560 00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,760 Speaker 1: thing is is the world piles up sometimes that the 561 00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:51,080 Speaker 1: rubrication doesn't get done, those those spaces remain in the 562 00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,960 Speaker 1: Finnish text. And then this carries on apparently when we 563 00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:56,880 Speaker 1: get to the advent of the printing press as well. 564 00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,560 Speaker 1: Early printed books were printed with spaces for hand drawn 565 00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,880 Speaker 1: effects such as pill crows. So you know, you're you're 566 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: using the adjustable typeface, you're using the you know, the 567 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,239 Speaker 1: block letters, and all your printing stuff out, but then 568 00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,320 Speaker 1: somebody needs to come back in and add that pill crow, 569 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,520 Speaker 1: and sometimes they don't. Uh and and certainly this became 570 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:19,440 Speaker 1: the case as demand grew, rubricators couldn't keep up, and 571 00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,520 Speaker 1: the pill crow dies out, but the spaces for the 572 00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:25,120 Speaker 1: pill crow remain. It's almost like if you go into 573 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,440 Speaker 1: an old house and they still have the like the 574 00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,480 Speaker 1: little nook for a rotary phone. Have you been in 575 00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,680 Speaker 1: one of these show, Yeah, yeah, So it's like that 576 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,840 Speaker 1: that technology is obsolete now, but the space where it 577 00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,320 Speaker 1: went it still remains. So what began as a kind 578 00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,840 Speaker 1: of vaguely defined punctuation mark that would be in the 579 00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:48,080 Speaker 1: margin beside a column of text, eventually becomes a more 580 00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:52,320 Speaker 1: sort of inline punctuation mark, and then eventually just becomes 581 00:31:52,320 --> 00:32:02,640 Speaker 1: a space in the line, a line break in an indentation. Yeah, 582 00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,240 Speaker 1: I just wanted to add one more interesting thing about 583 00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,480 Speaker 1: the the old school paragraph as mark in like a 584 00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,880 Speaker 1: Greek in Latin manuscripts. This is from that article by 585 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:16,560 Speaker 1: Gibson that I mentioned earlier. So Gibson points out that 586 00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,440 Speaker 1: scholars believe that in many or most cases, these marks 587 00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:25,520 Speaker 1: in the documents cannot be traced back to the original author. Instead, 588 00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,040 Speaker 1: they are usually something that would be added to a text, 589 00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:30,920 Speaker 1: either by a reader or by a scribe or editor 590 00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:33,520 Speaker 1: making a copy of a text. Because remember, in the 591 00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,360 Speaker 1: ancient world there was no printing press. Books had to 592 00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,360 Speaker 1: be copied by hand. And we can tell that the 593 00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:43,200 Speaker 1: paragraphs marks were probably added at some point after the 594 00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:47,320 Speaker 1: original author, because sometimes they appear in different places in 595 00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,960 Speaker 1: different copies of the same document. And so I think 596 00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:55,000 Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about paragraph breaks as being in 597 00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,640 Speaker 1: a way descended from something that wasn't encoded as a 598 00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:02,320 Speaker 1: part of the text at the author's discretion, but at 599 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,920 Speaker 1: say a copyists discretion or at the reader's discretion, they 600 00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,960 Speaker 1: might make these marks themselves on their own copy of 601 00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,440 Speaker 1: the document for their own reading convenience. Gibson also talks 602 00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:18,120 Speaker 1: about how so for like the cultural descendants of Greek 603 00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:22,480 Speaker 1: and Roman rhetoric and composition, the scriptio continuous system, the 604 00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,520 Speaker 1: one where it's just this block of of marching letters 605 00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,720 Speaker 1: that goes straight down the scroll in a column. Uh, 606 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,800 Speaker 1: that that came apart for several reasons in the medieval period. 607 00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,440 Speaker 1: One thing that Gibson draws attention to is the switch 608 00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,240 Speaker 1: from the scroll to the codex. Uh. You know, the 609 00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,960 Speaker 1: codex again is like modern day books, but with back 610 00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,000 Speaker 1: then they would have often been with pages made out 611 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,720 Speaker 1: of animal skins. And this change in medium brought about 612 00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:50,880 Speaker 1: a number of different ways of thinking about a text 613 00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:54,880 Speaker 1: and how it's presented to a reader. There's also Gibson 614 00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:59,440 Speaker 1: refers to a switch to what paleographer Mby Parks calls 615 00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:04,200 Speaker 1: a quote grammar of legibility around the eighth and ninth centuries. 616 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,680 Speaker 1: So it seems like you've got a lot of people 617 00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:12,759 Speaker 1: with sort of middling literacy participating in the copying and 618 00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,719 Speaker 1: reading of documents, like you know, monks and uh and 619 00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:21,640 Speaker 1: people within the Carolingian Renaissance. Uh. Basically they were trying 620 00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:23,600 Speaker 1: to come up with new ways of writing that would 621 00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:27,160 Speaker 1: make texts easier to read, especially if your language and 622 00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:31,600 Speaker 1: literacy skills are not top notch. And so there are 623 00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:36,239 Speaker 1: a number of legibility innovations in writing. One example would 624 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,000 Speaker 1: be the introduction of lower case scripts. You have capital 625 00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:43,680 Speaker 1: letters and lower case letters to help help organize the 626 00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,000 Speaker 1: words you're looking at. And the other big one is 627 00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:52,440 Speaker 1: spaces between words thank god uh. And in this period, 628 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,399 Speaker 1: Gibson writes that medieval scribes also continued the tradition of 629 00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,959 Speaker 1: of and identifying transitions of one kind or another subsections 630 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,400 Speaker 1: within text with that paragraphs marker. And then it's in 631 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,080 Speaker 1: in this literary tradition that the paragraph of marker goes 632 00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:11,800 Speaker 1: through all these um, you know, morphing into different letters 633 00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,080 Speaker 1: and then eventually becomes the pill crow, which then eventually 634 00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,319 Speaker 1: in the technological sphere of the printing press uh in 635 00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:22,680 Speaker 1: some cases, and then in most cases just becomes blank space. Yeah. 636 00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,239 Speaker 1: And I found it interesting to thinking about this, like 637 00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,440 Speaker 1: going from from from the initial you know, the initial 638 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:32,000 Speaker 1: transformation from from using these uh these hand copied text 639 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,360 Speaker 1: to using the printing press but still holding onto things 640 00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:39,919 Speaker 1: like uh like hand drawn illustrations, hand drawn um pill 641 00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:42,799 Speaker 1: crows and so forth. It made me think about what 642 00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:45,080 Speaker 1: happens when we do when we shift to a new 643 00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,840 Speaker 1: technology or a new medium. I think another example, this 644 00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:50,879 Speaker 1: is one we've touched on the show before, is by 645 00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:57,120 Speaker 1: going increasingly going to PDFs and in electronic texts. Essentially 646 00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,680 Speaker 1: that's more in line with the scroll. There doesn't need 647 00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:02,640 Speaker 1: to be page break page to page, and I think, 648 00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,719 Speaker 1: you know, viewing wise, you don't have to have one 649 00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:06,839 Speaker 1: if you don't want one. But I know, from my part, 650 00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:09,160 Speaker 1: I want those those page breaks in there, like something 651 00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:13,120 Speaker 1: feels weird organizationally weird, even on electronic text which I 652 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:16,160 Speaker 1: use all the time, especially for work. And but but 653 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:17,840 Speaker 1: I feel like there needs to I need to feel 654 00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,040 Speaker 1: like I'm looking at a digital version of a physical 655 00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:26,080 Speaker 1: page in a physical book rather than the sort of 656 00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:29,799 Speaker 1: of of endless stream that it actually is. Well, yeah, 657 00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,120 Speaker 1: and sometimes you would have to wonder like is it 658 00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:37,920 Speaker 1: actually arbitrary which elements of composition, which like structural elements 659 00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:41,200 Speaker 1: of composition are preserved across different media, and which are 660 00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:45,200 Speaker 1: not so uh when you read an e book, they 661 00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:50,279 Speaker 1: almost always are going to keep the author's original paragraph breaks, right, 662 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:52,759 Speaker 1: It's not going to rearrange what's a paragraph or make 663 00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,520 Speaker 1: shorter paragraphs or something, But the original page breaks are 664 00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:58,839 Speaker 1: of no concern at all. In fact, probably even you know, 665 00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,720 Speaker 1: the original printing of that book may have had different 666 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,080 Speaker 1: page breaks than whatever form the author composed it in, 667 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,400 Speaker 1: whether on a typewriter or handwritten or whatever. And so 668 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:11,200 Speaker 1: we've just decided that, well, the page needs to look 669 00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,920 Speaker 1: the same in terms of where the paragraphs are broken, 670 00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,239 Speaker 1: but not it does not need to look the same 671 00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:18,960 Speaker 1: in terms of where the pages are broken. And I 672 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,279 Speaker 1: see no reason where why like it would have to 673 00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,400 Speaker 1: be that way, you know, But even that, I have 674 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,320 Speaker 1: to admit, seems a little wrong at times, Like I 675 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,040 Speaker 1: don't know if this is everyone else's experience, but when 676 00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,799 Speaker 1: I'm reading books on my kindle um, I'll skip to 677 00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:32,719 Speaker 1: the next page, and sometimes I'll come back or you know, 678 00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:35,200 Speaker 1: accidentally turn the page and I'll turn back, and I'll 679 00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,680 Speaker 1: notice that now the page break occurs at a different 680 00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,560 Speaker 1: spot in the text, And that feels really wrong to me, 681 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:43,880 Speaker 1: and I feel even though there's no I don't think 682 00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:46,480 Speaker 1: there's any way you could have that uniform, especially when 683 00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,560 Speaker 1: you have the luxury of being able to change the 684 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:52,040 Speaker 1: size of the fond on the screen and so forth. 685 00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:56,080 Speaker 1: But it feels weird that I shouldn't have internal consistency 686 00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:59,480 Speaker 1: regarding when a page ends and when it begins. Yeah, totally. 687 00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,759 Speaker 1: I mean that I think we have expectations established on 688 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,680 Speaker 1: the basis of physical printed books where you know, that 689 00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:09,120 Speaker 1: just doesn't change. Right. I'm not saying it messes me up, 690 00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,000 Speaker 1: it really business me off or anything, but it's just 691 00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:13,080 Speaker 1: something I casually notice as I'm reading. It's like, what 692 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:17,160 Speaker 1: now the page ends on this paragraph? Well, this also 693 00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:20,440 Speaker 1: makes me think about something Gibson mentions in this essay, 694 00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:24,080 Speaker 1: which is uh, he writes, quote, Medieval readers and writers 695 00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,799 Speaker 1: were thus increasingly attentive to the visual appearance of the 696 00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:31,160 Speaker 1: page and as a and as a result, recognize the 697 00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,880 Speaker 1: paragraph significant place within it. So it's sort of in 698 00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:38,440 Speaker 1: the medieval period that the paragraph becomes an important part 699 00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,759 Speaker 1: of reading. Uh. And I was thinking about this. You know, 700 00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,640 Speaker 1: I have a lay person's perspective on this, so I 701 00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:46,440 Speaker 1: don't know if this is a good insight, but I 702 00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,000 Speaker 1: was at least wondering. Okay, so you look at like 703 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:53,400 Speaker 1: medieval practices of producing highly decorated texts with you know, 704 00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,840 Speaker 1: beautiful lettering and calligraphy, illustrations and illuminations and so forth. 705 00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:00,680 Speaker 1: It seems to me you find a lot less of 706 00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:03,480 Speaker 1: that in earlier texts. You like, if you look at 707 00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,080 Speaker 1: copies of the same books from centuries earlier, for example 708 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,680 Speaker 1: the Bible. Uh, the earlier copies, there often seems to 709 00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,839 Speaker 1: be no attempt whatsoever to improve the aesthetic qualities of 710 00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:17,400 Speaker 1: the copy. It's more like the scroll is just a 711 00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:22,359 Speaker 1: purely utilitarian storage medium for the text of the book. Uh, 712 00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,120 Speaker 1: So that you know, wouldn't be otherwise lost or forgotten, 713 00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,320 Speaker 1: and it would probably often be used for being read aloud. 714 00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:31,120 Speaker 1: Then you again, take the same text and look at 715 00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,440 Speaker 1: a medieval manuscript, it might be gorgeous in some way. 716 00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:37,719 Speaker 1: So it seems possible that the modern concept of the 717 00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:42,359 Speaker 1: paragraph emerges from a time of more literary luxury, when 718 00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:47,240 Speaker 1: there's a greater emphasis on making manuscripts themselves aesthetically pleasing. 719 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:50,399 Speaker 1: All right, Rob and I were just talking off Mike 720 00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,200 Speaker 1: and we decided we have to admit defeat by time 721 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,520 Speaker 1: where we we had more to talk about, we didn't 722 00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:56,919 Speaker 1: get to it yet. So this is going to become 723 00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,319 Speaker 1: a two part episode. Yeah, maybe it'll give any time 724 00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,680 Speaker 1: to find that actual perfect paragraph from some book I love. 725 00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,080 Speaker 1: I'll look around, maybe something will pop out at me. 726 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:07,560 Speaker 1: All right, we'll join us next time as we continue 727 00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:09,520 Speaker 1: this discussion, but go ahead and right in. We'd love 728 00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,400 Speaker 1: to hear from you if you have thoughts about the 729 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:14,759 Speaker 1: paragraph as we've discussed it thus far. Core episodes of 730 00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,160 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind published Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 731 00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,440 Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed We are 732 00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:24,719 Speaker 1: primarily a science podcast, and those are the primarily science episodes. 733 00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:28,600 Speaker 1: On Monday's we do a listener mail, on Wednesdays we 734 00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:31,320 Speaker 1: do short form artifact or monster Fact, and on Friday's 735 00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:33,520 Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about 736 00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,320 Speaker 1: a weird film. Huge thanks as always to our excellent 737 00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,400 Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to 738 00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,760 Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode 739 00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:43,840 Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, 740 00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:45,920 Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at 741 00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:56,520 Speaker 1: contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff 742 00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,720 Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 743 00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:01,200 Speaker 1: For more podcasts, I heart Radio, this is the I 744 00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,000 Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen me 745 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:17,480 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows,