"Alphabetical order requires us to pay attention not to meaning but to spelling, ensuring it would stay rare through the Middle Ages, disdained as an arbitrary imposition that was 'the antithesis of reason.' As for numbering pages, the notion of something so 'ruthlessly disinterested' from the text — impertinently insisting on a number for every page, regardless of its tendency to cleave paragraphs, sentences, even words — made it an intrusion that took some getting used to; the number’s allegiance wasn’t to the argument or the story but to the physical book itself...."
From "A Smart, Playful Book About the Underappreciated Index/Dennis Duncan’s entertaining and informative 'Index, A History of the' moves from the 13th-century origins of the form to the world of digital search engines" by Jennifer Szalai (NYT).
I'm going to buy this book when it's available, 2 days from now, and maybe you will too: "Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age."
This is right up my alley! As proof of my intense interest, I remind you of this post of mine from last December, "The Order of Orders." Excerpt:
But I'm going to give alphabetical order credit for doing so much with so little. It's random, but agreed on, and insanely useful.
Alphabetical order was first used in the 1st millennium BCE by Northwest Semitic scribes using the abjad system. However, a range of other methods of classifying and ordering material, including geographical, chronological, hierarchical and by category, were preferred over alphabetical order for centuries.
If I was going to make a Disney movie out of characters representing the different forms of order, I'd make alphabetical order the hero.
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37 comments:
How does index order work in a logographic writing system — e.g. Chinese?
Somewhat related, I wonder if English's lack of diacriticals — meaning every letter can be reproduced with with a seven segment display — has anything to do with computers coming to fruition first in the English speaking world.
In contrast to Chinese, where a computer simple enough to make at the time would be too simple to do anything useful.
We owe a lot to the Greeks.
As for numbering pages, the notion of something so 'ruthlessly disinterested' from the text
People that have never dropped a stack of IBM punch cards down the steps of the computer lab during finals week.
If you alphabetize Roman numerals it's good up until 9.
I'd make alphabetical order the hero.
it might be the hero... But Don't Forget! Chronological order came first!!!
I once worked in a university library where one of the collections was ordered by SIZE, smallest book to largest book. And the shelving locations hadn't made it into the online catalog. And the size information in the record wasn't always accurate. A big chunk of my job was finding these books and updating records so that they could be found again....
My favorite history books are of this nature, an exposition of a somewhat narrow slice of knowledge, how it evolved and the advancement on our lives.
Daniel Boorstin was a favorite of mine.
Something to keep in mind is how our digital age has caused issues with alphabetical order. Sorting a list of words or strings in "alphabetical order" can have quite different results based on how the actual sorting algorithm deals with such issues as:
-- upper vs lower case
-- including of non-alphabetical characters, including numbers, punctuation
-- how spaces are treated
-- how other special characters are treated
-- underlying digital values used to represent all alphanumeric characters
For us programmer types, it's a constant issue.
"If I was going to make a Disney movie out of characters representing the different forms of order, I'd make alphabetical order the hero."
That because you are hooked on phonics and can derive the likely spelling from the sound. But those taught to just "know" words by sight will be at a disadvantaged.
The Nebraska Supreme Court issued an order on fonts and margins. Arial is not allowed!
I may have to sue.
It looks so weird. Hard to get used to.
I recall reading in Jacques Barzun's "From Dawn to Decadence" that there was conservative religious objection to creating alphabetical ordering. The objection had to do with the idea that man was imposing an unnatural order on what should be God's ordering.
Ironically, I can't find the subject in the index of my copy of the book...
Can we go back a step further to the codex? So much better for every purpose I can think of than a scroll! (How can you have pagination with no page breaks?) But I'll bet there was resistance to it, too.
And forward to ebooks? So many advantages over a paper codex - including, to some extent, the fact that its searchability minimizes the need for an index - but even though I have more or less embraced the ebook, I grumbled about the lack of pagination until Kindle made it an option.
However. I miss an index: the visual cues of "this particular term occurs frequently in this text, which I can tell from the many page numbers that follow it," versus "how many pages of search results do I have to scroll through?" as well as the fact that an index is by its nature curated, whereas a search engine is the epitome of not. With an index, even if I myself don't know for certain which term(s) I ought to privilege over others, the indexer has made that call and points me toward them. (Of course that means subordinate items could be missed entirely. So the importance of the indexer's decisions depends on the depth of the research you're doing.)
“ Ironically, I can't find the subject in the index of my copy of the book...”
This is why I sometimes buy a Kindle copy of a book I’ve read and own so I can do a search.
Or just search in Google books or at Amazon.
“ it might be the hero... But Don't Forget! Chronological order came first!!!”
It’s discussed first at my linked post from December.
In a Disney plot, it would be the villain.
Wonder how it compares with Judith Flanders' book, published in October 2020, which was really interesting.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51770484-a-place-for-everything
Of course someone blessed with an "A" last name loves alphabet order.
To save some money in the long term I bought somewhat pricey indexing software when I was submitting my dissertation for publication. It makes the busywork part of the process easier while really giving a lot of creative work still. Having done indexes now for a while I really appreciate how much of an art it is.Though e-books make good indexing somewhat superfluous, having good cross-listing and sub-entries is still so useful and interesting.
If you want to get me really excited in a nerdy way, let's talk about citation and why end-notes are what publishers use to crush the spirits of writers and readers.
If you can avoid the "well I'm near enough now" impulse, you can find any word in a 2000 page dictionary in eleven page flips.
History is often sorted by dates, also an arbitrary arrangement. Time series data are equivalently represented in the frequency domain.
Alforgettable order, the student library assistant's nemesis.
Librarians, indexers, compilers of every sort have to have rules, and I am thankful that I no longer have to remember them.
I'll put the book on my list.
In a Disney plot, it would be the villain.
hmmp!
In a Disney plot, chronological order would be Cruella de Vil; played by Emma Stone
...chronological order is destined to win. As the Saying Goes, Age Before Beauty
rhhardin said...
If you can avoid the "well I'm near enough now" impulse, you can find any word in a 2000 page dictionary in eleven page flips
binary searches are great! But; why take 11, when you can Embrace the Power, of the B+ tree
Perhaps this upcoming book will be as fascinating as Simon Winchester's The Professor and the Madman, but I doubt it. I'll wait for the reviews.
The Popes had a unique order in mind in compiling their Index. Not alphabetical but heretical.
This yet another way to avoid responsibility for the near infinite, mind numbing number of laws and regulations.
Your honors, wise Latinas, may it please the court. it was so easy, a child could do it.
Rh said... "If you alphabetize Roman numerals it's good up until 9."
The Histroy of the World
The extra commandment is optional.
C.S. Lewis, writing in the late '50s or early '60s, said*: "Of all modern inventions, I think the medievals would have most appreciated the card catalog."
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The Discarded Image; the quote is from memory because even though I can see my copy of the book from where I'm writing this, I'm too lazy to try to skim through it and find the exact quote. That's one great advantage of Kindle editions.. But I'm sure I've got substance adequately captured.
but even though I have more or less embraced the ebook,
*gasp*, clutches pearls....
It's like I never knew you.....
(I spend at least $100 on real, hardbound books a month)
So much better for every purpose I can think of than a scroll! (How can you have pagination with no page breaks?)
You don't need pages, the location of the index word could be defined by its distance from the start of the scroll.
Gahrie, I know, I know... I resisted as long as I could! But imagine - a transatlantic flight to and from a vacation on which I could carry the requisite dozen or more books in one slim package?!
Wilbur
You might enjoy Henry Petroski. The "Book on the Bookshelf" and "The Pencil" are looks at the history of a couple of useful objects. Not to mention "The Toothpick."
Wilbur
You might enjoy Henry Petroski. The "Book on the Bookshelf" and "The Pencil" are looks at the history of a couple of useful objects. Not to mention "The Toothpick."
Wilbur
You might enjoy Henry Petroski. The "Book on the Bookshelf" and "The Pencil" are looks at the history of a couple of useful objects. Not to mention "The Toothpick."
Wilbur
You might enjoy Henry Petroski. The "Book on the Bookshelf" and "The Pencil" are looks at the history of a couple of useful objects. Not to mention "The Toothpick."
Movie ending could have a horde of Eden's Cue Balls...
This reminds me of a 99% invisible episode I heard recently:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/alphabetical-order/
@HeySkipper, in response to your question, the Chinese order things by the number of strokes each word has.
In the 99% invisble episode they interview Judith Flanders, the author of a history of Alphabetical Order. She sounds like a delightful person, and she really doesn't like Dewey, of the Dewey decimal system.
Did someone mention good books?
"Paper" or "Salt" by the great Kurlansky; Jerry Brotton's "A History of the World in Twelve Maps"; and Steven Johnson's "How We Got to Now" are available in paper (and probably e-).
The Elements of Typographical Style.
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