Definition:
(1) A system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey meaning. (2) the act of composing a text. See also:
Etymology:
From an Indo-European root, "to cut, scratch, sketch an outline"Examples and Observations:
- "Most scholars now accept that writing began with accountancy. . . . In the late 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia reached a point at which it outstripped the power of memory of the governing elite. To record transactions in a dependable, permanent form became essential. . . .
"[E]ssential to the development of full writing, as opposed to the limited, purely pictographic writing of North American Indians and others, was the discovery of the rebus principle. This was the radical idea that a pictographic symbol could be used for its phonetic value. Thus a drawing of an owl in Egyptian hieroglyphs could represent a consonant sound with an inherent m; and in English a picture of a bee with a picture of a leaf might (if one were so minded) represent the word belief."
(Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing. Thames, 1995) - "Thamus replied [to Theuth], 'Now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. . . . You offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant.'"
(Socrates in Phaedrus, by Plato)
Pronunciation: RI-ting
