Saturday, July 09, 2011

The Space: On Not Doing It Right the First Time

My rule is that you never get something difficult right the first time.  Usually you can't, or I can't, get something easy right the first time.

John Holbo at Crooked Timber has a post which discusses, among other things, how long it took Western humans to start using "spaces" in their writing.  (Languages which use pictographs obviously don't have the problem.)

For example: "overthecourseoftheninecenturiesfollowingromesfallthetaskofseparatingthewordsincontinuous
writtentextwhichforhalfamillenniumhadbeenafunctionoftheindividualreadersmindandvoicebec
ameinsteadalaborofprofessionalreadersandscribestheseparationofwordsandthussilentreadingor
iginatedinmanuscriptscopiedbyirishscribesintheseventhandeighthcenturies...'

I wonder whether the space didn't contribute to the growth of productivity?

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