Allusionist 9: The Space Between — The Allusionist
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A PODCAST ABOUT LANGUAGE
BY HELEN ZALTZMAN

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The Allusionist

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Allusionist 9: The Space Between

April 22, 2015 The Allusionist
Space Between Boggle board.jpeg

I know this is a show about words, but forget the words for a moment; look at the spaces between the words. Without the spaces, the words would be nigh incomprehensible. Dr Kate Wiles explains the history of the space. Visit theallusionist.

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I know this is a show about words, but forget the words for a moment; look at the spaces between the words. 

Without the spaces, the words would be nigh incomprehensible. And yet, they're a relatively recent linguistic innovation. Dr Kate Wiles explains how English got its spaces.

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:

  • See Ogham in a manuscript and Ogham on a stone.

  • Look at these tasty runes on the Franks casket.

  • Here's an Anglo-Saxon manuscript, whose scribe has got to grips with spaces.

  • The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/spaces.

  • Aargh, look at this mess of Latin before spaces:

Hooray for spaces!

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
nombril

CREDITS:

  • Dr Kate Wiles is contributing editor at History Today and soon will be helming their podcast. Her website is katewiles.wordpress.com and she tweets as @katemond.

  • This episode was presented and produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The music is by Martin Austwick.

  • Find me at facebook.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow and twitter.com/helenzaltzman.

Come back in a fortnight for the next episode, space cadets!

- HZ

In episodes Tags language, words, Anglo-Saxon, Old English, Latin, Irish, Ireland, scribes, monks, medieval, Normans, spaces, punctuation, layout, nombril, disgruntled, gruntled, runes, runic, Ogham, Kate Wiles, history, writing, text, manuscripts, Old Irish, Romans, Christianity, email, URLs, hashtags, internet, Aristophanes, spelling, letters, phonemes, Chinese, oral tradition, spoken language, reading, pauses, lower case, upper case, majuscule, capital letters, carving, inscriptions, Anchorman, quills
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