1 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:08,360 Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 2 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:09,480 Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. 3 00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:12,000 Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick. And hey, we had a day 4 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,200 Speaker 2: off this week, so we are bringing you an episode 5 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:17,080 Speaker 2: from the vault, and this is part one of our 6 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:22,120 Speaker 2: series on the paragraph. Yes, the literary device, the chunk 7 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:25,160 Speaker 2: of text. What is the paragraph? Where does it come from? 8 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:28,479 Speaker 2: How does it work? This episode originally published on August 9 00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:30,280 Speaker 2: twenty third, twenty twenty two. 10 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:31,920 Speaker 1: All right, let's jump right in. 11 00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:38,919 Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 12 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:47,400 Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 13 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:48,040 Speaker 1: is Robert. 14 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:52,120 Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And in today's episode, I 15 00:00:52,159 --> 00:00:55,560 Speaker 2: wanted to take a look at a writing convention and 16 00:00:55,600 --> 00:01:00,160 Speaker 2: that is the paragraph or the paragraph break. I think 17 00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:03,920 Speaker 2: there was a single moment of genesis in my desire 18 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:07,480 Speaker 2: to do this episode, and it's that, you know, some 19 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:10,240 Speaker 2: number of weeks back, I was doing research for some 20 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:13,559 Speaker 2: episode and I ended up looking up an archived plain 21 00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:15,959 Speaker 2: text version of an old book. 22 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:16,560 Speaker 1: Rob. 23 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:19,000 Speaker 2: I'm sure you've had this issue on the show before. 24 00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:23,000 Speaker 2: So you get plain text and the text is there, 25 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:26,679 Speaker 2: but all the original parag breaks are messed up. Like 26 00:01:26,720 --> 00:01:29,800 Speaker 2: they're either in the wrong place or there are no breaks, 27 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:32,360 Speaker 2: and I was like trying to read it. I was 28 00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:36,440 Speaker 2: just like, this is horrible. I hate this. Even though 29 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:41,320 Speaker 2: the whole text is here, I'm basically incapable of reading it. Somehow, 30 00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:46,520 Speaker 2: the existence of paragraphs with reasonable breaks is what makes 31 00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:49,200 Speaker 2: a massive text physically consumable to. 32 00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:53,080 Speaker 1: Me, right, and certainly, if it is supposed to be paragraphs, 33 00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:56,440 Speaker 1: it's supposed to have paragraph breaks in it. It's like 34 00:01:57,000 --> 00:01:59,600 Speaker 1: if someone were to bring a seven course meal to 35 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:02,880 Speaker 1: you and say, here, here it is in stew form, 36 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:06,160 Speaker 1: please enjoy it. I mean, and it hasn't been blended 37 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:07,840 Speaker 1: up in this scenario at all. So it's not like 38 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:10,840 Speaker 1: it is garbled. All of it is still there, but 39 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:13,080 Speaker 1: here it is without the little breaks. Here it is 40 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:15,600 Speaker 1: just all, you know, either either in the same pot 41 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:17,840 Speaker 1: or even just mashed together on the same plate. No, no, no, 42 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:20,519 Speaker 1: I want these. We need these breaks between these different 43 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,959 Speaker 1: things that we're going to consume. There needs to be 44 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,160 Speaker 1: an order to what is occurring. 45 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:28,080 Speaker 2: Right, Why not just put the tira massou in the 46 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:31,679 Speaker 2: clam chowder and then you get it all at once. Yeah, 47 00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:35,359 Speaker 2: And so this got me thinking about paragraphs in general, 48 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:40,280 Speaker 2: and wondering about where they come from historically, and why 49 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 2: we build them the way that we do, if there 50 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:45,440 Speaker 2: even is a consistent way that we build them, and 51 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:48,200 Speaker 2: all kinds of questions like this, And one thing I 52 00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:50,720 Speaker 2: thought might be interesting to get us kicked off today 53 00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:55,840 Speaker 2: is to just talk about the literary effect, the effect 54 00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,640 Speaker 2: on the reader when you're reading a book with a 55 00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:02,520 Speaker 2: lot of long paragraph versus short paragraphs, Like how does 56 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:06,640 Speaker 2: that change the experience of reading and the impression created. 57 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:10,200 Speaker 2: I'm sure other people have different ways of answering this, 58 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:13,680 Speaker 2: but one immediate distinction I thought of in my own 59 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:16,840 Speaker 2: reading experience has to do with the feeling of substance 60 00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:21,000 Speaker 2: versus the feeling of momentum, and I would explain it 61 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,360 Speaker 2: like this. When I think about good books with very 62 00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:28,840 Speaker 2: short paragraphs, I tend to think about readability and hookiness. 63 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,600 Speaker 2: Like Airport thriller novels. They tend to have very short paragraphs, 64 00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:36,800 Speaker 2: and those short paragraphs are I think effective for what 65 00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:39,840 Speaker 2: they're meant to do. That they tend to make the 66 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:42,320 Speaker 2: text easy to read. They make it feel like it's 67 00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:45,920 Speaker 2: fast moving and inviting. It wants to keep you reading, 68 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,720 Speaker 2: making you less likely to put the book down. Meanwhile, 69 00:03:49,760 --> 00:03:52,640 Speaker 2: when I think about good books with very long paragraphs, 70 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:58,000 Speaker 2: I tend to think about literary richness, like obsessive observation 71 00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:01,800 Speaker 2: or description or insight texts that feel like they are 72 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:07,560 Speaker 2: packed with detail and texture and thoughtfulness. So, in trying 73 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:10,760 Speaker 2: to like balance out those two different advantages you get 74 00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:13,840 Speaker 2: from different paragraph lengths, I came up with a kind 75 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:17,600 Speaker 2: of perhaps silly metaphor, but I started thinking about trips 76 00:04:17,640 --> 00:04:19,800 Speaker 2: to bring groceries in from the car. You know, you 77 00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:21,919 Speaker 2: ever go out shopping, you have a bunch of different things, 78 00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:24,240 Speaker 2: and you can, you know, you can take one or 79 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 2: two bags each time, or you can try to do 80 00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:29,400 Speaker 2: everything in one go, but sometimes that's impossible and you 81 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:31,960 Speaker 2: have to stop halfway to the door. So like when 82 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:34,719 Speaker 2: your paragraphs are too short, it's almost like you're trying 83 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:37,360 Speaker 2: to bring the groceries in one item at a time. 84 00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:41,280 Speaker 2: Something just starts to feel kind of insubstantial and absurd 85 00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:44,359 Speaker 2: about what you're doing. But if paragraphs are too long, 86 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:46,560 Speaker 2: that's kind of like trying to bring everything in in 87 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:48,760 Speaker 2: one trip, and you just stop, like you have to 88 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:51,359 Speaker 2: put it down and decide, okay, I can't do this, 89 00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:55,400 Speaker 2: So you're kind of balancing mobility, the mobility of carrying 90 00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:57,720 Speaker 2: less with the substance of carrying more. 91 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:00,280 Speaker 1: I think that's a good that's an interesting life thinking 92 00:05:00,279 --> 00:05:03,240 Speaker 1: about it that certainly, because the other side of that 93 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:07,200 Speaker 1: is I'm instantly thinking of the person that is obscenely 94 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,080 Speaker 1: trying to carry all the groceries in in one go, 95 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:12,840 Speaker 1: like you know, and I think I've tried to do 96 00:05:12,880 --> 00:05:17,400 Speaker 1: this before, where you're just you have multiple grocery bag 97 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,960 Speaker 1: straps on each hand, you have something on your arm, 98 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:24,040 Speaker 1: a sort of cradling something. Yeah, and then yeah, I 99 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:26,720 Speaker 1: guess you're planning on opening the door with your foot 100 00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:28,960 Speaker 1: or just slamming into it, or hoping there's somebody on 101 00:05:28,960 --> 00:05:31,240 Speaker 1: the other side to help you in. And here's the thing, 102 00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:34,440 Speaker 1: as the reader, like I'm either the door or I'm 103 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:36,440 Speaker 1: the person on the other side of the scenario, and 104 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: you just want to be like calmed down a little bit, 105 00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:43,000 Speaker 1: like I bought the book, or I rented the book, 106 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:44,839 Speaker 1: or I borrowed the book from the library, whatever the 107 00:05:44,839 --> 00:05:47,200 Speaker 1: case may be. We can get to all this. We 108 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:50,239 Speaker 1: don't have to have it all in the first paragraph. 109 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:52,599 Speaker 2: Right, And this is not I think this is not 110 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:55,200 Speaker 2: unique to modern readers. I mean, people who are writing 111 00:05:55,640 --> 00:06:00,840 Speaker 2: handbooks of composition and rhetoric in centuries past warned that 112 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:04,520 Speaker 2: overly long paragraphs have the effect of quote over taxing 113 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:09,359 Speaker 2: the reader. There's something about unbroken blocks of text that 114 00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:13,440 Speaker 2: just gets tiresome. And somehow, even though the text continues 115 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:17,240 Speaker 2: either way, just putting more breaks in between, separating that 116 00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:21,040 Speaker 2: in the smaller chunks, smaller paragraphs somehow makes the text 117 00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:23,920 Speaker 2: feel lighter and like you're just sort of like skipping 118 00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:26,760 Speaker 2: over it at at a breezy pace, as opposed to 119 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:29,400 Speaker 2: getting bogged down and feeling this weight. 120 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:32,760 Speaker 1: I was looking around for different writings on paragraphs and 121 00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:36,160 Speaker 1: I actually came across a nineteen sixty eight paper titled 122 00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:40,960 Speaker 1: writing Paragraphs by Culkin at All and it is J. R. 123 00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:44,039 Speaker 1: Tolkien himself, and wow, weird weirdly enough, one of the 124 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:47,320 Speaker 1: co authors was a professor at Memphis State in Tennessee. 125 00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:50,880 Speaker 1: I didn't get to the bottom of how these individuals 126 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:53,680 Speaker 1: all came together being credited on the same paper, but 127 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,520 Speaker 1: it gets into some of the basics and challenges and 128 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:00,839 Speaker 1: goals of teaching effective writing. But even in this paper, 129 00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:03,520 Speaker 1: the authors point out that the unity of a given 130 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:07,960 Speaker 1: paragraph is often illusory, a longer paragraph, they point out, 131 00:07:08,080 --> 00:07:11,040 Speaker 1: can often be broken into without upsetting anything. And they 132 00:07:11,080 --> 00:07:14,280 Speaker 1: point out, for instance, this is often done at certainly 133 00:07:14,280 --> 00:07:17,880 Speaker 1: at the editing phase and newspapers. The author wrote a 134 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:20,520 Speaker 1: paragraph it's a little bit too long looking on the screen, 135 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:22,600 Speaker 1: you just chop that sucker in half, and a lot 136 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:24,840 Speaker 1: of times you can do that without any ill effect. 137 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:27,440 Speaker 1: And likewise they point out that the reverse is true. 138 00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:29,960 Speaker 1: In many cases. You can take shorter paragraphs and kind 139 00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:32,920 Speaker 1: of combine them together and you're not going to effectively 140 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:35,720 Speaker 1: break anything. So that's I think that's something interesting to 141 00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:37,320 Speaker 1: keep in mind, even though at the same time they 142 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:40,240 Speaker 1: are acknowledging that, yeah, a lot of paragraph writing is 143 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:43,960 Speaker 1: about Okay, here's your this is the stuff we all 144 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,360 Speaker 1: learn in school, right here is our topic sentence. Then 145 00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:50,560 Speaker 1: we have supporting sentences, and the paragraph is supposed to 146 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:54,120 Speaker 1: be this one concise nugget of thought for us to consume. 147 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:56,920 Speaker 2: Well, that's a great transition to the next thing I 148 00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:59,040 Speaker 2: wanted to get at, which is that you know, of 149 00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:03,040 Speaker 2: course we're talking about reporting our subjective feelings as a 150 00:08:03,080 --> 00:08:06,600 Speaker 2: reader on you know, reading paragraphs of different lengths. But 151 00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:09,160 Speaker 2: the other side of the approach to paragraphs is the 152 00:08:09,200 --> 00:08:13,000 Speaker 2: more prescriptive approach. You know, here's what a paragraph must do, 153 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:17,640 Speaker 2: with the most famous or if you like, infamous prescription 154 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:21,920 Speaker 2: being that a paragraph must develop a single idea, and 155 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:24,560 Speaker 2: that idea must be announced near the beginning of the 156 00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,440 Speaker 2: paragraph in a topic sentence, and then there must be 157 00:08:27,600 --> 00:08:31,600 Speaker 2: supporting sentences. And you know, we can talk more about 158 00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:35,199 Speaker 2: the prescriptive idea of the paragraph later, I guess. But anyway, 159 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:38,800 Speaker 2: I find it interesting to consider the surface level paradox 160 00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:43,200 Speaker 2: that paragraphs are absolutely essential to most modern readers. I 161 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:45,480 Speaker 2: think you and I are probably not unique in this. 162 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:48,240 Speaker 2: Like the prospect of reading a book or even a 163 00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:52,160 Speaker 2: long article that's just a single, unbroken block of text 164 00:08:52,600 --> 00:08:55,240 Speaker 2: makes my blood run cold. I could not do it. 165 00:08:55,800 --> 00:08:59,680 Speaker 2: And yet it is difficult to explain exactly what the 166 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:03,640 Speaker 2: rule rules are for creating paragraphs like they're essential. But 167 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:09,680 Speaker 2: attempts to codify them in a universal way, I would argue, 168 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:12,920 Speaker 2: and I think we will argue later on pretty much 169 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:16,560 Speaker 2: universally failures, at at least at describing the way paragraphs 170 00:09:16,559 --> 00:09:20,120 Speaker 2: are actually used in popular writing. You know, so, questions 171 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:22,880 Speaker 2: about where do we break the line and why are 172 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:26,760 Speaker 2: in some ways still kind of elusive, even though breaking 173 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:28,200 Speaker 2: the line is a must. 174 00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:29,080 Speaker 1: Yeah. 175 00:09:29,280 --> 00:09:31,400 Speaker 2: Now, I don't know how successful this will be, but 176 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,240 Speaker 2: I did at least think, is it possible to mention 177 00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:38,880 Speaker 2: favorite paragraph breaks in writing? I was struggling to have 178 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:42,200 Speaker 2: any like obviously I have a lot of bits of 179 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:46,160 Speaker 2: writing that are a paragraph, but I was struggling to 180 00:09:46,160 --> 00:09:49,240 Speaker 2: think of examples where the break of the paragraph is 181 00:09:49,280 --> 00:09:51,679 Speaker 2: what I admire in the writing, as essential as it 182 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:53,199 Speaker 2: is to a piece of writing as a whole. 183 00:09:53,679 --> 00:09:56,040 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was once you brought this up. I was 184 00:09:56,120 --> 00:09:59,000 Speaker 1: thinking on it on my own here, and I was thinking, well, okay, 185 00:09:59,040 --> 00:10:01,200 Speaker 1: what are bits that stand out to me in writing? 186 00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:02,800 Speaker 1: And I found that a lot of times the things 187 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:06,319 Speaker 1: that come to me the easiest are opening lines or 188 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:11,440 Speaker 1: sometimes closing lines from novels, and a lot of those 189 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:13,199 Speaker 1: a lot of the time, if not all the time. 190 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:16,600 Speaker 1: It's super short. It's often not even perhaps a true 191 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:20,720 Speaker 1: clinical paragraph in that it is actually just one line. 192 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:24,280 Speaker 1: And like a couple of examples that I instantly thought of, 193 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:27,480 Speaker 1: Dante's Inferno has a great one in the of course 194 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:29,880 Speaker 1: we're getting into poetry here, we're getting into stanzas, but 195 00:10:30,960 --> 00:10:33,199 Speaker 1: it is effectively a sentence in the middle of the 196 00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:35,760 Speaker 1: journey of our life. I came to myself in a 197 00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:39,880 Speaker 1: dark wood for the straightway was lost. An even better example, 198 00:10:39,920 --> 00:10:41,959 Speaker 1: and this is from an actual novel. This is from 199 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:46,120 Speaker 1: Alan Rogue Grills The Voyeur. It just begins with a 200 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:49,439 Speaker 1: short sentence it was as if no one had heard. 201 00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:52,280 Speaker 1: And I always loved that one because it's so evocative, 202 00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:55,720 Speaker 1: like what is the thing that no one had heard? 203 00:10:55,800 --> 00:10:58,240 Speaker 1: Why had they not heard it? And who is making 204 00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:00,520 Speaker 1: or what is making the sound? Like it asked so 205 00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:04,120 Speaker 1: many questions that I have to keep moving. Another good 206 00:11:04,160 --> 00:11:07,000 Speaker 1: one Fahrenheit four fifty one by Ray Bradberry. It was 207 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:08,079 Speaker 1: a pleasure to burn. 208 00:11:08,679 --> 00:11:11,360 Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting. So these prose works. I've read these, 209 00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:15,839 Speaker 2: but I did not recall the opening paragraphs being a 210 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:16,680 Speaker 2: single line. 211 00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:19,240 Speaker 1: Yeah. A couple of other ones that came to mind. 212 00:11:19,880 --> 00:11:22,880 Speaker 1: Neurom Anser by William Gibson. The sky above the port 213 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,760 Speaker 1: was the color of television turned to a dead channel 214 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:28,360 Speaker 1: or this is a famous one as well. From Fear 215 00:11:28,400 --> 00:11:31,040 Speaker 1: and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. We 216 00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:33,440 Speaker 1: were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert 217 00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:36,959 Speaker 1: when the drugs began to take hold, Yeah, that's another 218 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:37,439 Speaker 1: good one. 219 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:41,520 Speaker 2: So you're a fan of the short, possibly single sentence 220 00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:43,839 Speaker 2: opening paragraph in fiction at least. 221 00:11:44,160 --> 00:11:46,760 Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, there's something about just like that one line 222 00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:49,560 Speaker 1: that's really there. Really either either it really makes me 223 00:11:49,640 --> 00:11:52,200 Speaker 1: think and established as kind of a vibe, or in 224 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:55,800 Speaker 1: some cases it establishes a different definite setting or scenario 225 00:11:55,960 --> 00:12:00,679 Speaker 1: rather succinctly. For instance, the Gibson one a certain it's 226 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:04,840 Speaker 1: really more about vibe. The Voyeur quote is more about vibe. 227 00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:08,000 Speaker 1: The Hunter S. Thompson one is vibe and setting. It 228 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,280 Speaker 1: gives you a sense of where we're going and sort 229 00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:13,199 Speaker 1: of what is going on. I was obviously I'm a 230 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:15,240 Speaker 1: big fan of Dune, so I thought, well, what was 231 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:16,680 Speaker 1: the first line of doing I can't remember it off 232 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:18,920 Speaker 1: the top of my head. There, if you skip past 233 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:23,840 Speaker 1: the quote from the Princess, the first line is in 234 00:12:23,880 --> 00:12:26,760 Speaker 1: the week before their departure to Aracus, when all the 235 00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:30,720 Speaker 1: final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an 236 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:33,559 Speaker 1: old crone came to visit the mother of the boy Paul. 237 00:12:34,160 --> 00:12:36,440 Speaker 1: Now that's that's not a paragraph that I would just say, 238 00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:38,280 Speaker 1: oh I put that on a T shirt for me, 239 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:40,720 Speaker 1: or or can I have that inscribed in my flesh. 240 00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:44,960 Speaker 1: But it is a great, a great opening line that 241 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:48,800 Speaker 1: just establishes exactly what is going on and gives you, 242 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:50,760 Speaker 1: you know, it gives you some mystery. I guess you 243 00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:53,400 Speaker 1: don't know what Aracus is at this point, and you 244 00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:56,640 Speaker 1: were instantly wondering, well, who is this old crone? And 245 00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:59,560 Speaker 1: it sets the story and it does a good job 246 00:12:59,559 --> 00:13:03,199 Speaker 1: of just just having us dived directly into the action. Really, 247 00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:06,920 Speaker 1: but I couldn't remember or just looking around really quickly 248 00:13:06,960 --> 00:13:11,600 Speaker 1: find an example of a multi sentence paragraph, particularly an 249 00:13:11,679 --> 00:13:15,760 Speaker 1: opening paragraph from a work that I held to a 250 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:17,720 Speaker 1: really high standard. I don't know how about you, Joe. 251 00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:19,640 Speaker 2: I'm sure if I had more time thinking about this, 252 00:13:19,679 --> 00:13:22,040 Speaker 2: I could come up with good examples, but I have not, 253 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:25,080 Speaker 2: because again, I think paragraph breaks are essential, but I 254 00:13:25,160 --> 00:13:30,720 Speaker 2: have not scrutinized individual breaks enough that they really like 255 00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:33,360 Speaker 2: stick with me, there's something that is essential, but they 256 00:13:33,400 --> 00:13:36,040 Speaker 2: mostly to me, become invisible in a text. I don't 257 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:38,959 Speaker 2: remember where the line breaks happen. 258 00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:43,040 Speaker 1: Usually, Yeah, if a paragraph is put together effectively and 259 00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:45,280 Speaker 1: it's doing its job, you don't notice. That's one of 260 00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:49,840 Speaker 1: the things about it. I've never had the experience of 261 00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:52,760 Speaker 1: reading something to think, yeah, that's a great place for 262 00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:55,480 Speaker 1: a paragraph break, I might think the other the opposite 263 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:57,560 Speaker 1: of that, I might think, couldn't we have broken this 264 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:01,080 Speaker 1: up a little bit more Frank Herbert or whoever I'm 265 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:04,320 Speaker 1: happening to read, And it's not necessarily I was thinking 266 00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:07,160 Speaker 1: about this as well, like, what is the experience of 267 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:10,400 Speaker 1: reading a text that is not just one big breakless 268 00:14:10,440 --> 00:14:14,640 Speaker 1: paragraph but has, but does have some rather expansive paragraphs. 269 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:18,720 Speaker 1: I find that sometimes when I'm looking at this page, 270 00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:22,000 Speaker 1: I still have a gut instinct that it looks like work, 271 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:24,520 Speaker 1: Like you know what I'm saying, Like, even though the 272 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:26,640 Speaker 1: thing is, if it's a book that I'm even halfway 273 00:14:26,680 --> 00:14:29,600 Speaker 1: interested in, it's not like big paragraphs are a stumbling 274 00:14:29,600 --> 00:14:31,280 Speaker 1: block to me. It's not like I get lost in 275 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:33,920 Speaker 1: them or I'm not going to finish them. It's not 276 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:37,000 Speaker 1: like I need to, you know, artificially throw in paragraph breaks. 277 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,840 Speaker 1: From my own reading, it works just fine. But there's 278 00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:44,840 Speaker 1: something maybe it's like a callback to early reading experiences, 279 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:49,080 Speaker 1: but there's sort of that initial impact in my psyche 280 00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:51,000 Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, these paragraphs are too long, what 281 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:52,280 Speaker 1: is this author doing? Oh? 282 00:14:52,320 --> 00:14:55,520 Speaker 2: This is funny though, because inserting your own paragraph breaks 283 00:14:55,600 --> 00:14:59,240 Speaker 2: in the work of an author who otherwise creates really 284 00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:04,400 Speaker 2: unholy chunks. This is something that some teachers actually do, 285 00:15:04,640 --> 00:15:07,680 Speaker 2: and one specific writer I was reading for this episode 286 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,800 Speaker 2: talks about doing so. One of the main things I 287 00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:13,640 Speaker 2: was reading in preparation for this was a great essay 288 00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:17,840 Speaker 2: by a scholar named Richard Hughes Gibson called Past Lives 289 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:21,080 Speaker 2: of the Paragraph which was published in the Hedgehog Review. 290 00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:25,479 Speaker 2: That's an interdisciplinary culture journal based out of the University 291 00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:27,960 Speaker 2: of Virginia. And I'll refer back to this article several 292 00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:32,000 Speaker 2: times in the episode, but towards the end of his article, 293 00:15:32,280 --> 00:15:36,240 Speaker 2: Gibson tells a story about how several years back he 294 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:40,680 Speaker 2: was trying to prepare a reading for students, and this 295 00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:44,200 Speaker 2: was by a critic who, well, i'll just hear read 296 00:15:44,240 --> 00:15:48,480 Speaker 2: from what Gibson writes. Quote said critic had a pensioned 297 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:52,400 Speaker 2: for composing labyrinthine paragraphs, which I now realized would quickly 298 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:56,000 Speaker 2: exhaust my students. Although I felt a tinge of compunction 299 00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:59,000 Speaker 2: about tampering with those paragraphs, I set to work and, 300 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:01,800 Speaker 2: knowing this was the only way of salvaging the reading, 301 00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:04,520 Speaker 2: the breaks came easily, though, and I soon found the 302 00:16:04,520 --> 00:16:07,400 Speaker 2: work enjoyable. I was seeing the piece in a new way, 303 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:11,400 Speaker 2: and I quote discovered several remarkable sentences that I had 304 00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:15,840 Speaker 2: overlooked while navigating my way through the labyrinths. And then 305 00:16:15,880 --> 00:16:19,360 Speaker 2: he also says that this did indeed make this article 306 00:16:19,440 --> 00:16:22,000 Speaker 2: much more enjoyable for the students, and he just started 307 00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:24,120 Speaker 2: doing it in all his other classes. When somebody has 308 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:26,920 Speaker 2: huge paragraphs, he would just go in and edit them 309 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:30,360 Speaker 2: to add in paragraph breaks, and you could see. I 310 00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 2: don't know, an author might be mad to find out 311 00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:34,440 Speaker 2: somebody was doing that to their work, but you can 312 00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:36,320 Speaker 2: also clearly see the advantage. 313 00:16:36,640 --> 00:16:39,200 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, It does make me wonder if there are 314 00:16:39,280 --> 00:16:42,440 Speaker 1: new editions of books that come out that engage in this, 315 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,280 Speaker 1: or is it considered forbidden? You know, I don't know. 316 00:16:47,800 --> 00:16:51,680 Speaker 1: I'd be very curious to hear about this. When I 317 00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,280 Speaker 1: was looking around for some other info about this, I 318 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:58,840 Speaker 1: did run across a paper titled how to write a 319 00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:02,480 Speaker 1: thesis according to to Echo by unburd to Echo, And 320 00:17:02,880 --> 00:17:05,760 Speaker 1: in it, he briefly touches on the paragraph and he 321 00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,760 Speaker 1: writes the following quote begin new paragraphs. Often do so 322 00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:13,679 Speaker 1: when logically necessary and when the pace of the text 323 00:17:13,680 --> 00:17:16,320 Speaker 1: requires it. But the more you do it, the better. 324 00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:19,760 Speaker 2: That's funny because Echo has a tendency to write some 325 00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:23,600 Speaker 2: really long paragraphs. But I mean, in his defense, a 326 00:17:23,680 --> 00:17:26,359 Speaker 2: lot of his long paragraphs are full of exactly that 327 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:29,720 Speaker 2: quality of richness that I was mentioning earlier, Like the 328 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:34,960 Speaker 2: long paragraphs feel substantial, They're full of detail and insight. 329 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:38,560 Speaker 1: Yeah. This, of course, I was thinking about other authors 330 00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:40,120 Speaker 1: that I've really loved over the years, and I started 331 00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:43,320 Speaker 1: thinking about Cormick McCarthy, of course, who is often very succinct, 332 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,159 Speaker 1: especially in his later works, or really most of his 333 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:51,000 Speaker 1: works passed like the first novel its name leaves me 334 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:53,320 Speaker 1: at the moment, but his first novel is a little 335 00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:57,800 Speaker 1: bit denser. But a lot of his later work, especially 336 00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,439 Speaker 1: his more recent work, is often characterized by being just, 337 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:05,320 Speaker 1: you know, very succinct, short sentences, no quotation marks. But 338 00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:08,560 Speaker 1: occasionally you get a nice, like super run on long 339 00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:12,720 Speaker 1: sentence that is essentially like a big paragraph that is 340 00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:15,560 Speaker 1: almost the opposite of what we're talking about here, where 341 00:18:15,600 --> 00:18:17,880 Speaker 1: it just keeps going and going, but at the same 342 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:21,080 Speaker 1: time it has a rhythm to it and an intensity, 343 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:23,680 Speaker 1: and the mere fact that it won't end. Is like 344 00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:27,560 Speaker 1: it's like a crazed thought being poured directly into your 345 00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:29,480 Speaker 1: brain and you can't quite turn it off. 346 00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:32,280 Speaker 2: Yeah, long paragraphs can definitely lend themselves to a kind 347 00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:36,320 Speaker 2: of obsessive, immersive or stream of consciousness quality to the text. 348 00:18:36,359 --> 00:18:39,600 Speaker 2: It's you know, when you are like stuck deep in 349 00:18:39,720 --> 00:18:42,480 Speaker 2: somebody else's brain and you're not coming up for air, 350 00:18:42,680 --> 00:18:45,080 Speaker 2: that that's often going to be a long paragraph. 351 00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:48,040 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's almost like there's a conversational 352 00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:52,280 Speaker 1: aspect to paragraph breaks, like this is the amount of 353 00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:55,639 Speaker 1: text that is occurring before the speaker pauses, has a 354 00:18:55,640 --> 00:18:58,920 Speaker 1: sip of their beverage, gives you an opportunity to think 355 00:18:59,040 --> 00:19:01,840 Speaker 1: or say something in return. But it's just that paragraph. 356 00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:12,560 Speaker 1: Then perhaps you're being preached at I was thinking of. 357 00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:16,160 Speaker 1: I also was thinking, Okay, obviously, paragraph breaks. I think 358 00:19:16,200 --> 00:19:18,320 Speaker 1: we all agree that these are great. But surely there's 359 00:19:18,359 --> 00:19:21,440 Speaker 1: somebody out there who's gotten a bit experimental and decided 360 00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:24,159 Speaker 1: I will craft a work of fiction that has no 361 00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:29,359 Speaker 1: paragraph breaks. And I don't remember ever encountering anything like this. 362 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:32,679 Speaker 1: I've certainly read books that, for instance, don't have quotation 363 00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:35,320 Speaker 1: marks for dialogue or I think I've read books that 364 00:19:35,359 --> 00:19:39,080 Speaker 1: don't have indentions on new paragraphs. I'm trying to remember 365 00:19:39,080 --> 00:19:40,560 Speaker 1: what this would have been. I think it was an 366 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:46,600 Speaker 1: Anthony Burgess book, but I don't recall. I've certainly read 367 00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:48,560 Speaker 1: books where you have, you know, large sections written in 368 00:19:48,680 --> 00:19:52,320 Speaker 1: fictional slang, etc. But I've never encountered anything that is 369 00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:55,640 Speaker 1: one massive chunk of text. I looked around to see 370 00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:57,680 Speaker 1: if such a thing existed, and I did find some 371 00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:01,520 Speaker 1: threads on like a creative writing board message board where 372 00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:04,280 Speaker 1: someone was like, Hey, I'm thinking of writing something with 373 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,919 Speaker 1: no paragraph breaks. What does everyone think? And there were 374 00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:11,080 Speaker 1: some great answers, you know, people were like, well, I 375 00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:13,680 Speaker 1: think it's gonna be hard for folks to digest. I 376 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:16,800 Speaker 1: think it's gonna you know, they're gonna potentially recoil from 377 00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:19,639 Speaker 1: seeing that big, massive block of text. And so it 378 00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:21,960 Speaker 1: was interesting because, yeah, there's so many things you can 379 00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:25,600 Speaker 1: you can break and play with as a writer potentially, 380 00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:28,760 Speaker 1: and more so if you know what you're doing. But 381 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:32,040 Speaker 1: when it comes to the paragraph break, it does seem 382 00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:34,639 Speaker 1: like there is something from the modern standpoint anyway, that 383 00:20:34,720 --> 00:20:35,720 Speaker 1: is essential about it. 384 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:38,040 Speaker 2: Yes, and I think this will make a great transition 385 00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:40,720 Speaker 2: to talking a bit about the history of the paragraph, 386 00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:44,440 Speaker 2: where paragraphs come from, because if you go back far 387 00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:47,520 Speaker 2: enough in history, you're going to find a lot of 388 00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:53,720 Speaker 2: literature that is made entirely with that block of text mentality. Man, 389 00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:57,040 Speaker 2: you hate big, blocky masses of text. Look at like 390 00:20:57,080 --> 00:21:01,000 Speaker 2: an ancient Greek manuscript and just feel the chill. 391 00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:04,280 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's and I was. I was looking at some 392 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:06,679 Speaker 1: of these examples, and and so I couldn't help but 393 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,480 Speaker 1: think a lot about the medium involved too. So, like 394 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,240 Speaker 1: if you go back and look at super old examples 395 00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:15,720 Speaker 1: of writing that have survived, you're looking at things like 396 00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:19,560 Speaker 1: oracle bones, which you know, oftentimes you're dealing with with 397 00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:21,760 Speaker 1: like say the bones from a turtle, part of the shell, 398 00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,320 Speaker 1: that sort of thing with inscriptions on it, or you're 399 00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:28,400 Speaker 1: dealing with with like wooden strips. You see that sometimes 400 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:32,240 Speaker 1: from from from from from from you know, Indian traditions. 401 00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:36,520 Speaker 1: There's also, of course, the use of clay tablets, and 402 00:21:37,119 --> 00:21:39,840 Speaker 1: a lot of times you're you you probably have to realize, okay, 403 00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:43,359 Speaker 1: this is this was relatively expensive and it consumed a 404 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:45,399 Speaker 1: lot of time and energy. So you would want to 405 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:47,400 Speaker 1: fit as much text on one of those as possible, 406 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:49,600 Speaker 1: and at the same time, there's only so much text 407 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,760 Speaker 1: you could get on there, you know, like how many 408 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:58,879 Speaker 1: thoughts could you effectively encode into an oracle bone? And 409 00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,360 Speaker 1: even if you're in even of what you're putting down 410 00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:03,679 Speaker 1: is certainly maybe not a diary entry, but it's more 411 00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,320 Speaker 1: about just recording figures and facts and that sort of thing. 412 00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:08,880 Speaker 2: Well, I do think a lot of the conventions of 413 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:15,080 Speaker 2: writing might be contingent on the differences between a document 414 00:22:15,160 --> 00:22:18,960 Speaker 2: scarcity culture and a document rich culture, which I think 415 00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:20,880 Speaker 2: we you know, sort of came up when we were 416 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:25,800 Speaker 2: talking about the history of technologies for duplicating documents. That 417 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,119 Speaker 2: you know, people just have different ways of approaching writing 418 00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:34,280 Speaker 2: when written documents are something that is expensive and scarce 419 00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,399 Speaker 2: versus when they're just you know, cheap to make and 420 00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:38,280 Speaker 2: all over the place. 421 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:43,080 Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, from our modern standpoint, I was trying 422 00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:45,160 Speaker 1: to think of what is my relationship with paragraph breaks, 423 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:46,719 Speaker 1: and I tend to think of it as kind of 424 00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:48,960 Speaker 1: like the breath of the text. You know, it's the 425 00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:53,879 Speaker 1: fluctuating intensity of the author's mental process. And I also 426 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:56,399 Speaker 1: feel that, you know, with a very visual mind and 427 00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:59,760 Speaker 1: one hone for fiction reading by film viewing to a 428 00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:01,960 Speaker 1: large degree, I think, you know, like I was viewing 429 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:05,639 Speaker 1: films and viewing TV before I was reading, and so 430 00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:08,040 Speaker 1: to a certain extent, the paragraph breaks are also sort 431 00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,480 Speaker 1: of like stage direction, like look at this, now, look 432 00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:13,720 Speaker 1: at this, and they can help drive home shifts in tone, 433 00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:18,520 Speaker 1: intensity and character and so forth. So it's, you know, 434 00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,640 Speaker 1: from our modern standpoint, the format is part of the signal. 435 00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,439 Speaker 1: Strip the format away, and the signal is degraded, like 436 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:28,640 Speaker 1: that big block of text. If you take any given work, 437 00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,560 Speaker 1: you know, you take up it. Certainly, if you take 438 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:33,800 Speaker 1: something like any of the books that we've discussed so far, 439 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,119 Speaker 1: and you take all the paragraph breaks out, it's not 440 00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:39,960 Speaker 1: going to be the same because it's like the breath 441 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,840 Speaker 1: patterns of the voice speaking to you are altered. But 442 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:45,840 Speaker 1: what if the text is written in such a way 443 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:49,440 Speaker 1: that the characters, the symbols, and the words alone are 444 00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:53,080 Speaker 1: the signal. How do you denote shifts in subject matter? 445 00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,080 Speaker 1: How do you do the things that paragraph breaks do? 446 00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,760 Speaker 1: And also like where and how does that emerge out 447 00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,000 Speaker 1: of our written language traditions? 448 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:08,479 Speaker 2: Yeah, and to imagine documents where the signal is really 449 00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,919 Speaker 2: just the sequence of the characters, like the letters in 450 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,160 Speaker 2: the words A great thing to look at is actual 451 00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,960 Speaker 2: ancient Greek and Roman documents. These things used to often 452 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:23,239 Speaker 2: be written on papyrus scrolls, so remember these would not 453 00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,480 Speaker 2: be books like ours with flippable pages. The format with 454 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,320 Speaker 2: flippable pages like we used today is called a codex. 455 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:33,240 Speaker 2: The scroll is the one continuous sheet, and text on 456 00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:39,040 Speaker 2: these scrolls of papyrus was generally written until more like 457 00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:43,400 Speaker 2: in the medieval period in a method called scriptio continua, 458 00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,520 Speaker 2: and this means there is no punctuation between sentences and 459 00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:52,880 Speaker 2: there are no spaces between words. No spaces between words. 460 00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,320 Speaker 2: Is up to you to figure out where one word 461 00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:59,679 Speaker 2: stops and another one starts. They don't have punctuation between sentences, 462 00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 2: they very likely don't have paragraph breaks, but there might 463 00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:09,400 Speaker 2: be something in there to signal some kind of transition 464 00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:10,359 Speaker 2: to help you out. 465 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,439 Speaker 1: No, as this was a written language of symbols, what 466 00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,040 Speaker 1: did we do when we turned to symbols to denote 467 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,199 Speaker 1: these shifts? I was initially reading about this in the 468 00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:24,119 Speaker 1: Origin of the Pilcrow aka the Strange Paragraph Symbol by 469 00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:29,080 Speaker 1: Jimmy Stamp for Smithsonian in twenty thirteen, and Stamp writes 470 00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,159 Speaker 1: that if we go back to around two hundred CE, 471 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:36,280 Speaker 1: we'd find paragraphs quote unquote, which could loosely be understood 472 00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:39,760 Speaker 1: as changes in topics speaker, or stanza that were separated 473 00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:46,000 Speaker 1: by various symbols that scribes had developed independently out of 474 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,080 Speaker 1: the need for such breaks, but without any kind of 475 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:53,040 Speaker 1: top down consistency. So the scribes here in this part 476 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,520 Speaker 1: of Europe might be using one thing. Over here they're 477 00:25:55,560 --> 00:26:00,879 Speaker 1: using another thing, just different traditions, different symbols emerging Amprit's quote. 478 00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:04,760 Speaker 1: Some used unfamiliar symbols that can't easily be translated into 479 00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,879 Speaker 1: a typed blog post. Some used something as simple as 480 00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,280 Speaker 1: a single line, while others used the K for caput 481 00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:16,640 Speaker 1: for the Latin word for head. Languages change spellings evolve, 482 00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,679 Speaker 1: and by the twelfth century scribes abandon the K in 483 00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:23,080 Speaker 1: favor of the sea for capitulum little head to divide 484 00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:27,879 Speaker 1: text into capitula, also known as chapters. Like the treble clef, 485 00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:32,199 Speaker 1: the pill crow evolved due to the inconsistencies inherent in 486 00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:35,760 Speaker 1: hand drawing. As it became more widely used, the sea 487 00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,719 Speaker 1: gained a vertical line in keeping with the latest rubrication 488 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,720 Speaker 1: trends and other more elaborate embellishments. Eventually becoming the character 489 00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,479 Speaker 1: scene at the top of this post. And the character 490 00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,760 Speaker 1: in question is the pill crow, which you can all 491 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,480 Speaker 1: look this up if you're not envisioning it already. It's 492 00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:56,639 Speaker 1: this curious, slightly ornate symbol that looks kind of like 493 00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,440 Speaker 1: a backwards P with a stalk made out of two 494 00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,080 Speaker 1: vertical lines, and the hollow of the P is often 495 00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:06,879 Speaker 1: filled in so that it's solid. Does that Does that 496 00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,840 Speaker 1: seem like a reasonable description of this strange symbol. 497 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,480 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the thing that I remember first seeing when 498 00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,399 Speaker 2: I was like trying to edit documents in an early 499 00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:21,080 Speaker 2: version of Microsoft word and I accidentally clicked some setting 500 00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:23,959 Speaker 2: where suddenly every line break had one of these, and 501 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,320 Speaker 2: I was like, ah, how do I make them go away? Uh? 502 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,720 Speaker 2: But in fact, it used to be quite common for say, 503 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,960 Speaker 2: medieval manuscripts to be full of these symbols. 504 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,840 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And indeed, indeed, I think most of the 505 00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,440 Speaker 1: modern readers are going to be familiar with this from 506 00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:42,159 Speaker 1: doing the same thing, clicking on the wrong thing in 507 00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: a word processor and seeing all the pill crows, seeing 508 00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,160 Speaker 1: all the little machine ls that are making paragraph breaks possible. 509 00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,240 Speaker 1: I think there are also some some modern legal and 510 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:57,040 Speaker 1: academic writing uses of the pill crow, but it's you know, 511 00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,679 Speaker 1: it's used in web publishing, it's used in proofreading, but 512 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,159 Speaker 1: it has this origin and just a way to break 513 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:04,880 Speaker 1: up thoughts. 514 00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:09,160 Speaker 2: Yes, And so strangely enough, the word paragraph though now 515 00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:13,760 Speaker 2: the word refers to a chunk of text itself. The 516 00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:19,800 Speaker 2: word actually comes from the Greek originally paragraphos, which means 517 00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,399 Speaker 2: written beside, you know, to write beside something. And that 518 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:27,960 Speaker 2: comes from the fact that originally paragraph breaks come from 519 00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:31,240 Speaker 2: this practice of making some kind of mark in the 520 00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,000 Speaker 2: margin of a document, so you'd have like a Pyraates scroll, 521 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,679 Speaker 2: it's just got this big, unbroken chunk of letters just 522 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,440 Speaker 2: marching down the page. And the way you signal some 523 00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,680 Speaker 2: kind of transition. And as you said, Robert, it wasn't consistent. 524 00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,240 Speaker 2: It wasn't like there were, you know, stable rules for 525 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,400 Speaker 2: when you use the paragraphos and when you don't, it 526 00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,560 Speaker 2: just means something is changing here. Maybe it's a change 527 00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,720 Speaker 2: a new sentence begins on this line, or maybe it's 528 00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,560 Speaker 2: that there's a change in speeders in a drama or 529 00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,320 Speaker 2: a philosophical dialogue or something, or change of topic. It's 530 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,240 Speaker 2: just something is different here. And originally that's this line, 531 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:11,760 Speaker 2: just like a dash in the margin, and then over 532 00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,120 Speaker 2: time it changes into these letters you're talking about, like 533 00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,480 Speaker 2: the K or the C in Latin manuscripts, and then 534 00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,600 Speaker 2: eventually the C gets these bars and it becomes the 535 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,560 Speaker 2: pill crow. But I think this is all originally derived 536 00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,320 Speaker 2: from this paragraphs marker, just the dash in the margin. 537 00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:29,280 Speaker 2: It says something's different now. 538 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:32,400 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this this post I was looking at by Stamp. 539 00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:37,840 Speaker 1: He's citing Keith Houston's Shady Characters, The Secret Life of 540 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:43,120 Speaker 1: punctuation symbols and other typographical marks. And it gets into 541 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:47,920 Speaker 1: like the basically the death of the pill Crow. Where 542 00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,120 Speaker 1: does the pill crow go? And it's actually a pretty 543 00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,640 Speaker 1: interesting story because basically what ends up happening in the 544 00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,760 Speaker 1: medieval period is they ring used more and more, but 545 00:29:56,880 --> 00:30:01,200 Speaker 1: then they start to sort of vanish in the late 546 00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,480 Speaker 1: medieval period. And the main reason is that you have 547 00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:09,120 Speaker 1: texts being copied. That was how you reproduced texts, as 548 00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,240 Speaker 1: we've discussed in the show before, and you had these 549 00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:17,760 Speaker 1: pill crows which had become increasingly artistic and ornamental in nature. 550 00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,800 Speaker 1: And when you had things like that in a manuscript 551 00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:22,680 Speaker 1: that was being copied, well, somebody else had to come 552 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,000 Speaker 1: back in and add those in later. You just had 553 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,920 Speaker 1: to leave a space for them. And that's the job 554 00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,360 Speaker 1: that would fall to the rubricators. They'd be the ones 555 00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,200 Speaker 1: that come back in and add the read ink or 556 00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,080 Speaker 1: other special effects that need to be a part of 557 00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:38,920 Speaker 1: this illuminated manuscript that's being copied. 558 00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,840 Speaker 2: That's actually where their name comes from. Rubric is from 559 00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,280 Speaker 2: the Latin meaning red, So like the word rubric is 560 00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,120 Speaker 2: derived from the idea of a heading in a document 561 00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,720 Speaker 2: that might be written in red. Because of these people, 562 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:54,880 Speaker 2: the rubricators who were using red ink. 563 00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,160 Speaker 1: Yeah, they fod It sounds kind of nefarious, doesn't it, 564 00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:02,719 Speaker 1: the rubricators. I wonder if anyone has used that in 565 00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,880 Speaker 1: a nefarious fashion and in some sort of strange fiction 566 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,200 Speaker 1: before the red letter men. But anyway, Yeah, so you 567 00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,680 Speaker 1: have all these these these blanks that have to be 568 00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:16,880 Speaker 1: left when you're copying manuscripts, and the thing is, as 569 00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,560 Speaker 1: the work piles up sometimes that the rubrication doesn't get done, 570 00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,760 Speaker 1: those those spaces remain in the finished text. And then 571 00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:27,800 Speaker 1: this carries on apparently when we get to the advent 572 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,480 Speaker 1: of the printing press as well. Early printed books were 573 00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,720 Speaker 1: printed with spaces for hand drawn effects. Such as pill crows. 574 00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,400 Speaker 1: So you know, you're using the adjustable type face, you're 575 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,440 Speaker 1: using the you know, the block letters and all, you're 576 00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,280 Speaker 1: printing stuff out, but then somebody needs to come back 577 00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:45,760 Speaker 1: in and add that pill crow, and sometimes they don't, 578 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,080 Speaker 1: And certainly this became the case as demand grew, rubricators 579 00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,520 Speaker 1: couldn't keep up, and the pill crow dies out, but 580 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,720 Speaker 1: the spaces for the pil crow remain. It's almost like 581 00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,480 Speaker 1: if you go into an old house and they still 582 00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,680 Speaker 1: have the like the little book for a rotary phone. 583 00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:03,320 Speaker 1: Have you been in one of these shows? 584 00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:04,840 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, totally. 585 00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:07,960 Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's like that technology is obsolete now, but 586 00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,760 Speaker 1: the space where it went it still remains. 587 00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:14,400 Speaker 2: So what began as a kind of vaguely defined punctuation 588 00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:18,000 Speaker 2: mark that would be in the margin beside a column 589 00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:22,520 Speaker 2: of text eventually becomes a more sort of inline punctuation mark, 590 00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,720 Speaker 2: and then eventually just becomes a space in the line, 591 00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:27,400 Speaker 2: a line break, and an indentation. 592 00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:32,040 Speaker 1: Yeah. 593 00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,360 Speaker 2: I just wanted to add one more interesting thing about 594 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,920 Speaker 2: the old school paragraphs mark in like a Greek in 595 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:45,080 Speaker 2: Latin manuscripts. This is from that article by Gibson that 596 00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:49,480 Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier. So Gibson points out that scholars believe 597 00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,920 Speaker 2: that in many or most cases, these marks in the 598 00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:57,600 Speaker 2: documents cannot be traced back to the original author. Instead, 599 00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,240 Speaker 2: they are usually something that would be added to a text, 600 00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,040 Speaker 2: either by a reader or by a scribe or editor 601 00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,600 Speaker 2: making a copy of a text. Because remember, in the 602 00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,480 Speaker 2: ancient world there was no printing press. Books had to 603 00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,440 Speaker 2: be copied by hand. And we can tell that the 604 00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:15,320 Speaker 2: paragraphoss marks were probably added at some point after the 605 00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:19,400 Speaker 2: original author, because sometimes they appear in different places in 606 00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,040 Speaker 2: different copies of the same document. And so I think 607 00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:27,120 Speaker 2: it's interesting to think about paragraph breaks as being in 608 00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,720 Speaker 2: a way descended from something that wasn't encoded as a 609 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,440 Speaker 2: part of the text at the author's discretion, but at 610 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,000 Speaker 2: say a copyist's discretion or at the reader's discretion, they 611 00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,040 Speaker 2: might make these marks themselves on their own copy of 612 00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:45,600 Speaker 2: the document for their own reading convenience. Gibson also talks 613 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:50,200 Speaker 2: about how so for like the cultural descendants of Greek 614 00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:54,640 Speaker 2: and Roman rhetoric and composition, the scriptio continuous system, the 615 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,760 Speaker 2: one where it's just this block of marching letters that 616 00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:01,480 Speaker 2: goes straight down the scroll in a column that came 617 00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:06,400 Speaker 2: apart for several reasons. In the medieval period, one thing 618 00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:08,840 Speaker 2: that Gibson draws attention to is the switch from the 619 00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,160 Speaker 2: scroll to the codex. You know, the codex again is 620 00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:14,600 Speaker 2: like modern day books, but back then they would have 621 00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,799 Speaker 2: often been with pages made out of animal skins, and 622 00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,680 Speaker 2: this change in medium brought about a number of different 623 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,080 Speaker 2: ways of thinking about a text and how it's presented 624 00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:28,200 Speaker 2: to a reader. There's also Gibson refers to a switch 625 00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,799 Speaker 2: to what palaeographer MB. Parks calls a quote grammar of 626 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:38,400 Speaker 2: legibility around the eighth and ninth centuries. So it seems 627 00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:40,560 Speaker 2: like you got a lot of people with sort of 628 00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:46,120 Speaker 2: middling literacy participating in the copying and reading of documents, 629 00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:53,040 Speaker 2: like you know, monks and people within the Carol Engine Renaissance. Basically, 630 00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:54,960 Speaker 2: they were trying to come up with new ways of 631 00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,480 Speaker 2: writing that would make texts easier to read, especially if 632 00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,880 Speaker 2: your language and literacy skill are not top notch, and 633 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:07,040 Speaker 2: so there were a number of legibility innovations in writing. 634 00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:11,240 Speaker 2: One example would be the introduction of lower case script, 635 00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,640 Speaker 2: so you have capital letters in lower case letters to 636 00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:18,279 Speaker 2: help organize the words you're looking at. And the other 637 00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:23,880 Speaker 2: big one is spaces between words. Thank God. And in 638 00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:27,680 Speaker 2: this period, Gibson writes that medieval scribes also continued the 639 00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:33,000 Speaker 2: tradition of identifying transitions of one kind or another subsections 640 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:37,520 Speaker 2: within text with that paragraphs marker. And then it's in 641 00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:41,520 Speaker 2: this literary tradition that the paragraphs marker goes through all 642 00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,719 Speaker 2: these you know, morphing into different letters and then eventually 643 00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,440 Speaker 2: becomes the pilcrow, which then eventually in the technological sphere 644 00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,920 Speaker 2: of the printing press in some cases and then in 645 00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:54,040 Speaker 2: most cases just becomes blank space. 646 00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:57,160 Speaker 1: Yeah. And I found it interesting too thinking about this, 647 00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,520 Speaker 1: like going from from the initial you know, the initial 648 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:04,720 Speaker 1: transformation from from using these hand copyed text to using 649 00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,920 Speaker 1: the printing press, but still holding on to things like 650 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,160 Speaker 1: like hand drawn illustrations, hand drawn pil crows, and so forth. 651 00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:15,799 Speaker 1: It made me think about what happens when we do 652 00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,280 Speaker 1: when we shift to a new technology or a new medium. 653 00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:21,600 Speaker 1: I think another example, this is what we've touched on 654 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:26,120 Speaker 1: the show before, is by going increasingly going to PDFs 655 00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,160 Speaker 1: and an electronic texts essentially that's more in line with 656 00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,760 Speaker 1: the scroll. There doesn't need to be a page break 657 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,760 Speaker 1: page to page, and I think, you know, viewing wise, 658 00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:37,800 Speaker 1: you don't have to have one if you don't want one. 659 00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:39,960 Speaker 1: But I know, for my part, I want those those 660 00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,360 Speaker 1: page breaks in there, like something feels weird organizationally weird, 661 00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,040 Speaker 1: even on electronic texts, which I use all the time, 662 00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,319 Speaker 1: especially for work. But I feel like there needs I 663 00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,880 Speaker 1: need to feel like I'm looking at a digital version 664 00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:56,480 Speaker 1: of a physical page in a physical book rather than 665 00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:01,160 Speaker 1: the sort of endless stream that it actually is. 666 00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:03,839 Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and sometimes you would have to wonder, like, 667 00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:09,000 Speaker 2: is it actually arbitrary which elements of composition, which like 668 00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:12,840 Speaker 2: structural elements of composition, are preserved across different media, and 669 00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:17,279 Speaker 2: which are not. So when you read an ebook, they 670 00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:22,319 Speaker 2: almost always are going to keep the author's original paragraph breaks, right. 671 00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,880 Speaker 2: It's not going to rearrange what's a paragraph or make 672 00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,640 Speaker 2: shorter paragraphs or something. But the original page breaks are 673 00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:30,960 Speaker 2: of no concern at all. In fact, probably even you know, 674 00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,800 Speaker 2: the original printing of that book may have had different 675 00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,120 Speaker 2: page breaks than whatever form the author composed it in, 676 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,440 Speaker 2: whether on a typewriter or handwritten or whatever. And so 677 00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,279 Speaker 2: we've just decided that, well, the page needs to look 678 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,000 Speaker 2: the same in terms of where the paragraphs are broken, 679 00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,360 Speaker 2: but not it does not need to look the same 680 00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,040 Speaker 2: in terms of where the pages are broken, and I 681 00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:53,480 Speaker 2: see no reason why, like it would have to be 682 00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:54,359 Speaker 2: that way, you know. 683 00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:56,600 Speaker 1: But even that, I have to admit, seems a little 684 00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:57,960 Speaker 1: wrong at times, Like I don't know if this is 685 00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:00,720 Speaker 1: everyone else's experience, but when I'm reading books on my kindle, 686 00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:04,440 Speaker 1: I'll skip to the next page and sometimes I'll come back, 687 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:06,279 Speaker 1: or I'll know i'll accidentally turn the page and I'll 688 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,640 Speaker 1: turn back, and I'll notice that now the page break 689 00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,480 Speaker 1: occurs at a different spot in the text, and that 690 00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:14,799 Speaker 1: feels really wrong to me, and I feel even though 691 00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,040 Speaker 1: there's no I don't think there's any way you could 692 00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:20,080 Speaker 1: have that uniform, especially when you have the luxury of 693 00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,759 Speaker 1: being able to change the size of the fond on 694 00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:26,000 Speaker 1: the screen and so forth. But it feels weird that 695 00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:29,719 Speaker 1: I shouldn't have internal consistency regarding when a page ends 696 00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:30,520 Speaker 1: and when it begins. 697 00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:34,600 Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I mean, I think we have expectations established 698 00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:37,600 Speaker 2: on the basis of physical printed books where you know 699 00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:39,600 Speaker 2: that just doesn't change, right. 700 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:41,960 Speaker 1: I'm not saying it messes me up or really pisses 701 00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:43,920 Speaker 1: me off or anything, but it's just something I casually 702 00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,440 Speaker 1: notice as I'm reading. It's like, what now the page 703 00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:48,160 Speaker 1: ends on this paragraph? 704 00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,520 Speaker 2: Well, this also makes me think about something Gibson mentions 705 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,560 Speaker 2: in this essay, which is he writes, quote, Medieval readers 706 00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:59,560 Speaker 2: and writers were thus increasingly attentive to the visual appearance 707 00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,920 Speaker 2: of the page, and as a result recognize the paragraph 708 00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:06,080 Speaker 2: significant place within it. So it's sort of in the 709 00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:11,400 Speaker 2: medieval period that the paragraph becomes an important part of reading. 710 00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:14,520 Speaker 2: And I was thinking about this. You know, I have 711 00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:17,440 Speaker 2: a layperson's perspective on this, so I don't know if 712 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,440 Speaker 2: this is a good insight, but I was at least wondering. Okay, 713 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,520 Speaker 2: So you look at like medieval practices of producing highly 714 00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:28,320 Speaker 2: decorated texts with you know, beautiful lettering and calligraphy, illustrations 715 00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,520 Speaker 2: and illuminations and so forth, it seems to me you 716 00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:35,040 Speaker 2: find a lot less of that in earlier texts. You Like, 717 00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:37,440 Speaker 2: if you look at copies of the same books from 718 00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:42,080 Speaker 2: centuries earlier, for example the Bible, the earlier copies there 719 00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,360 Speaker 2: often seems to be no attempt whatsoever to improve the 720 00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:49,000 Speaker 2: esthetic qualities of the copy. It's more like the scroll 721 00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:53,000 Speaker 2: is just a purely utilitarian storage medium for the text 722 00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:55,680 Speaker 2: of the book. So that it, you know, wouldn't be 723 00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:58,520 Speaker 2: otherwise lost or forgotten, and it would probably often be 724 00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:02,000 Speaker 2: used for being read al loud. Then you again, take 725 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,360 Speaker 2: the same text and look at a medieval manuscript, it 726 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,640 Speaker 2: might be gorgeous in some way. So it seems possible 727 00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:12,080 Speaker 2: that the modern concept of the paragraph emerges from a 728 00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:15,719 Speaker 2: time of more literary luxury, when there's a greater emphasis 729 00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:21,279 Speaker 2: on making manuscripts themselves esthetically pleasing. All right, Rob and 730 00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,640 Speaker 2: I were just talking off Mike and we decided we 731 00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,719 Speaker 2: have to admit defeat. By time, we had more to 732 00:40:26,719 --> 00:40:28,480 Speaker 2: talk about, we didn't get to it yet, So this 733 00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:30,000 Speaker 2: is going to become a two part episode. 734 00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,440 Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe it'll give me time to find that actual 735 00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,800 Speaker 1: perfect paragraph from some book I love. I'll look around, 736 00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,279 Speaker 1: maybe something will pop out at me. All Right, we'll 737 00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:40,560 Speaker 1: join us next time as we continue this discussion, But 738 00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,040 Speaker 1: go ahead and write in. We'd love to hear from 739 00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:44,600 Speaker 1: you if you have thoughts about the paragraph as we've 740 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,399 Speaker 1: discussed it thus far. Core episodes of Stuff to Blow 741 00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,680 Speaker 1: Your Mind published Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff to 742 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:54,080 Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed. We are primarily a science podcast, 743 00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:58,160 Speaker 1: and those are the primarily science episodes. On Mondays we 744 00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:01,000 Speaker 1: do a listener mail, on windy Days we do a 745 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,480 Speaker 1: short form artifact or monster fact, and on Fridays we 746 00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,719 Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a 747 00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:06,360 Speaker 1: weird film. 748 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,600 Speaker 2: Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth 749 00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,080 Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch 750 00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,319 Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 751 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:16,360 Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to 752 00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,160 Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff 753 00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:28,160 Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com. 754 00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,200 Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 755 00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,080 Speaker 3: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 756 00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:50,160 Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.