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Augustine found it worth remarking upon that Ambrose read silently. Many medieval letters and books started with something like "don't read this in the presence
by stan_rogers 13y ago
Augustine found it worth remarking upon that Ambrose read silently. Many medieval letters and books started with something like "don't read this in the presence of others, for it is secret". And there's a reason why we call little working nooks carols and why we still talk about chewing over new ideas. It's hard to imagine a time when reading and (basic, not necessarily creative) writing were separate skills, and that having the one did not necessarily imply having the other. We've changed a bit since printing happened.
- mogrim 13y ago> It's hard to imagine a time when reading and (basic, not necessarily creative) writing were separate skills, and that having the one did not necessarily imply having the other. We've changed a bit since printing happened. I'm guessing you don't have kids - it was quite an eye-opener for me when my eldest learnt to write before learning to read: I'd always assumed writing was harder than reading, and that both were intimately linked... They're definitely separate skills.
- stan_rogers 13y agoBeen there, done that, as folks say (and it was quite a while back — the kids have kids). That period in a child's life, though, is a short one, and most folks don't remember their own experience of the phenomenon (or much of anything else from that age, either) very well. (I'd bet that most of the people who use this site read relatively fluently before school age. Heck, most of us are so literate that we often mistake these here squiggles for "real" language when it is, at best, a rough guide for reconstructing what is a much more nuanced (and ephemeral) means of communicating.) "hard to imagine" and "hard to see if you're paying attention" are not interchangeable statements.