Pilcrow, Dagger, and Octothorp, Oh My!
So, I don’t know what kind of nerd you are, but my brand of nerdiness dovetails neatly with this video about the origins of some of the most common symbols on your keyboard: #, @, &, §, *, ¶, †, and ‡, as well as ☞.
The “and” symbol or ampersand does not look like a word, but it is one. In fact, it is a full one. It is the Latin word for “and”: “et”. The Romans themselves used this. How do we know? Because we have this: the earliest known example of it, graffitied onto a wall in the doomed Roman city of Pompeii.
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I wish people who create these videos would also include a summary. The topic is somewhat interesting to me but 20 minutes to get information about 8 symbols is just not worth it.
I can't really think of a better example of making thing shittier* than requiring people to spend 20 minutes watching a video to get information that could probably be conveyed in less than a page.
*Not using word "enshittification" here because that word itself is a example of making things shittier.
I would not have posted this video if it was shitty. I also watch movies instead of just reading their plot summaries on Wikipedia. (I'm being a little salty about this, but come on. Not everything is about the most efficient ingestion of information.)
I do agree with Jason this is kind of an unnecessarily spiky take. To your point, sure, some videos are over-stretching 1x fact/nugget into 20 mins (though I don't think this is the case here). Anyways: you can just use the YouTube AI button and 1st option is "summarize this video." I do use it a fair amount.
You're certainly right that not everything is about the most efficient ingestion of information but, in my mind at least, I distinguish between say "There Will Be Blood" or "The Battle of Algiers" or "Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit" on one hand and videos about keyboard symbols on the other, with the latter being much more amenable to concise summary.
It's crazy to think of how much the Internet was built on the backs of the non-alphanumeric characters on the keyboard. HTML was built on spare parts, in a way. It's marvelous.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
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