The connection between writing and speech

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The concept of writing as a distinct form from speech was not initially realized because people thought writing was just a manifestation of speech. The tiny pauses that naturally occur in speech are not noticeable to human ears or brains, but can be recorded by a device. Therefore, people originally did not perceive the need to mark distinct words or sentences in writing, as they viewed speech as a continuous flow of sound.

On this episode we learn about the history of the exclamation point, the question mark, and the semicolon (among many other aspects of language) with Florence Hazrat, a scholar of punctuation, who, to my great surprise, informed me that while a lot of language is the result of a slow evolution, a gradual ever-changing process, punctuation in the English language is often an exception to this – for instance, a single person invented the semicolon; they woke up and the semicolon didn’t exist, and then went to bed that night, and it did!

Florence Hazrat's Website

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