Scratching the Surface: The Origins of Writing and Vandalism

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter: the difference between a lightning bug and lightning.
― Mark Twain

Our English word for writing derives from the Proto-Germanic “writan,” which means to tear or scratch.

Look at every etymological source, including Old High German, Old Saxon and Old Norse, and there is implied violence in the act of writing. Writing is associated with tugging and pulling, and the 3,900 year-old Indo-European ur-words for writing are mostly related to carving.

The primitive scribe was hardly a sensitive dandy or greeting card composer of flowery prose; she was a savage.

Is that what we’re doing when we write?

Ripping the curtain to see what’s on the other side?

Tearing the lid off, so we can peer into my soul and the souls of others?

Picking at the wound that hasn’t quite healed?

Leaving little gash “X” marks on a tree trunk beside the path, so we know the way home?

Or, are we blowing open a hole with in the Berlin Wall with a satchel of C4 explosive, so that someone detained on the other side sees the ray of light flowing through, altering the geopolitics of the planet forever?

Is there a butterfly-in-the-Amazon effect from a single sentence?

I don’t know yet, but I’m writing every day to find out.

This essay originally appeared in Laying Low: Essays