Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

by Joshua Foer

Unlike the letters in this book, which form words that carry semantic meaning, letters written in scriptio continua functioned more like musical notes. They signified the sounds that were meant to come out of one’s mouth. Reconstituting those sounds into discrete packets of words that could be understood first required hearing them. And just as it is difficult for all but the most gifted musicians to read musical notes without actually singing them, so too was it difficult to read texts written in scriptio continua without speaking them aloud. In fact, we know that well into the Middle Ages, reading was an activity almost always carried out aloud, a kind of performance, and one most often given before an audience. “Lend ears” is a phrase often repeated in medieval texts. When St. Augustine, in the fourth century A.D., observed his teacher St. Ambrose reading to himself without moving his tongue or murmuring, he thought the unusual behavior so noteworthy as to record it in his Confessions.