Desmond HenryTREASURE BEACH:
IT HAS become the most persistent symbol of the electronic age. It is all-pervasive, popping up everywhere in e-mails, advertising copy, flyers and posters. Its history reflects a kind of 'gotcha' a scriptive hurrah in human communication. It has dramatically replaced the triple motion handwritten 'at', in a kind of free flowing cursive form, that resembles a crab taking a breather outside its shell.
I refer of course, to the omnipresent curled-up figurine @. How did it emerge? And how did it acquire its international status? Researchers say that though the @ may be the sign of our times, this emblem of cyber-space communication began a long time ago, indeed as far back as medieval times. It first appeared as a handwritten monogram technically called a ligature which was used to render the common Latin preposition 'ad' meaning to, or toward.
Artistic symbols
It was introduced in the Middle Ages when block lettering started to give way to the more free flowing cursive (commonly called 'join up' in beginner's writing). The word cursive actually means 'running' or the nearest expression of the way pens ran across the papyrus in earlier times.
Monks, for example, who were the main copiers of books and manuscript, used to save energy and time by reducing letters to the fewest possible hand strokes. As a result, artistic symbols were passed from one monastery to the next. The 'e' and 't' in the Latin word et meaning 'and' melded into the now familiar symbol &; and the 'a' and 'd' in ad (meaning at) became @.
Early ligatures like @ and & were considered the graphic equivalent of 'aint' in contemporary usage today. Along with cursives, ligatures greatly influenced the formal handwriting known as bookhand, up to the time of the mid-15th century when Gutenberg invented the printing press. Evenso the symbol @ never quite achieved the elegance of its counterpart, the ampersand &. Instead it was kind of relegated to a mostly commercial existence in accounting and trading practices.
Information suggests that now in its heyday, the @ might be intent on recapturing some of its lost aristocratic grounds. Its cyber ego indicates that it is more than just a space-saving pen and ink squiggle of its earlier era. Just as earlier scribes found it necessary to refine their craft for reasons of speed, efficiency and economy, the writings of their era formed the cutting edge technology of those times. And so even before the current era of www and dot coms, history suggests that the @ that errant paper crab was high tech from day one, long long ago.
Two events,
multiple spirits
So if for some reason, a week should go by and you don't run into an @, you had better quickly double-check where you are. You just might have become pre-historic. And that's where my head is @ this week.
My good friend Vera Ennis who runs that highly respected art gallery at Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus hotel, last week opened a week-long art exhibition at the Bloomfield Great House in Mandeville. The pieces were wonderful.
Opening night was well attended and suggested that it is about time that Mandeville seriously considers a permanent art gallery as a feature of its communal life. It has the two human qualities that normally make such things appropriate sophistication and per capita income.
Then Jakes, that pace-setting boutique hotel in Treasure Beach, opened additional rooms last weekend. If that amounts to going in a direction not being travelled by most properties these days, then that says something about Jakes that ought to be studied by others. Congrats to Jason and mummy, Sally Henzell.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
I am extremely partial to logic and common sense.
Desmond Henry is a marketing strategist based at Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
