Vest-Pocket Vocabulary Xylog’raphy, n. engraving on wood. Word in the Wild: The park ranger says carving your initials in trees isn’t xylography—it’s just vandalism. Xylography refers to engravings in wood as well as the impressions made from them. The term was used in the nineteenth century to distinguish wood-block printing from that using moveable type. […]
My awesome parents, knowing all about my obsession with words, recorded the Empire of the Word documentary series that aired on TVO last month for me. It was developed and narrated by the very impressive Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading, The Library at Night, and The City of Words among other titles. […]
The invention of Gutenberg’s printing press is leading in the moreintelligentlife.com poll for most the most important event of all time. I think it’s telling that even in this age of electronic publishing, 570 years after its invention, the power and influence of the printing press continues to be so keenly felt. So for those […]
Recommended Read Chappell, Warren and Robert Bringhurst. A Short History of the Printed Word. Vancouver: Hartley & Marks Publishers Inc., 1999. [ISBN-10: 0-88179-154-7] A Short History of the Printed Word is an impressively complete history of print and its astonishing cultural ascendency, beginning with the invention of moveable type in eleventh-century China and ending with […]