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Was silent reading unusual during Augustine's time?

78 points · 63 comments · ryanscio

  1. MiroslavPokorny · · focus · HN ↗
    Reading was very different in the old times, todays text is clear and filled with many aides that didnt exist back then.

    For starters text didnt include spaces which im going to guess would have meant people tried to "sound" out sequences of letters and slowly found words and consumed the text. From what ive seen many times it was difficult to tell letters apart due to ink runs or simply because the ink was too think. Just imagine if its hard for us to tell capital eye and little el, it must have been impossible manytimes back then.

    1. card_zero · · focus · HN ↗
      That's "aids", not "aides". Politicians have aides.
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