Thumbing through the index.

Abstract

Just as perspective brought depth to the canvas, so cartography uses shadow and colour to draw for us startlingly knobbly images of Icelandic (my example) landscapes, while digital graphics can fly us on the flat screen into deep valleys and over high mountain passes. In the same way we read the geology of the text from the two-dimensional (and digital) surface of the printed page. While modern linguistics claims to find a wealth of “underlying” or hidden structure in language, I suggest that the history of scribal practice defines a gradual unearthing of this structure, an inexorable movement to the surface of the text. It uncovers indices for us to follow, bent fingers that show the way to unseen destinations, thumbs that point out the portals of the text, and broad hands that brush away our encroaching horizons.