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Off Topic: The weird history of handwriting

From cuneiform to Coca-Cola.

In his Confessions, written around the year 400 AD, Saint Augustine mentions his shock upon coming across a friend who was reading a book without saying the words out loud as he went. Reading in your head! It's odd in 2021 to read about Augustine's astonishment and realise that the act of silently reading to yourself was an act that had to be learned. It arrived a surprisingly long time after written language.

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Christian Donlan avatar
Christian Donlan is a veteran former editor on staff at Eurogamer, and now a regular contributor. He is the author of The Unmapped Mind, published as The Inward Empire in the US.
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