Stupid Mail - From The Strip Mall of Babel

I guess my scripto continua joke yesterday went over the heads of those I expected it to go over.   Scripto continua, the earliest form of writing of Greek and Latin in which words are written continuously, letter after letter, not taking note of lines, words not separated, with no punctuation and, in the Roman alphabet, everything is written in capital letters (punctuation and miniscules being a medieval monastic invention) is probably how almost all classical literature was written, even as English, up until the 19th century, was not written in standardized spelling.  Some late Roman monuments have dots between words but scripto continua was how Latin was written on parchment or paper.



From The Classical Journal Forum

That one of Duncan's doddering duffers doesn't know the difference between grammar (the structure of language) and mechanics (the mechanics of writing words on a page) isn't surprising.  Ignorance is what remains when the adults flee.  I'd probably be as ignorant of that difference if my excellent 6th grade English grammar teacher in my modest rural grammar school hadn't pointed out that difference to us. Spelling isn't grammar either, by the way.  I don't recall if our 6th grade English grammar book noted the difference but I know the Warriner's 9th grade English Grammar And Composition book did, having a copy of it. 

Maybe I should diss Strunk-White again, that really got Simps and the Simpletons knickers in a twist the last time I did it.  It's why they freak out at a sentence of more than 12 or so words, the idiotic idea that simple sentences of few words are the real, right way to write.  I've seen so many ignorantly praise Strunk-White, never in texts that followed their rigid, stupid commands, though.  Like those who praise Hemingway while not following his sterile 4th grade reader model of writing to do it.   They don't practice it, they just know they're supposed to say they like it even though they don't even know it.

Maybe I should have tried it in boustrophedon script, though I'm not going through the work of doing that typing without an app to do it with.  Too much work for a quick, minor joke.