![\"flags\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/files\/2009\/09\/flags2.jpg\" "\\"flags\\"")
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I\u2019m not sure if this really satisfies the requirements.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a definition but it is about text, sort of…<\/p>\n
I was at an art gallery recently to look at the preview of a show that was about to open. \u00a0The pieces were by Canadian artist David Blackwood. \u00a0The gallery was pretty well empty that day except for the artist who was there to see how the show looked. \u00a0We ended up having a long conversation, part of which involved this painting of flags. \u00a0You can\u2019t see it in this image but the flags all have letters of the alphabet underneath them. \u00a0He told me how these flags would have been the main form of communication on the sailing ships. \u00a0The idea was that during a battle there would be so much smoke at deck level that they would use the flags so they could be seen above the smoke. \u00a0Apparently every captain would have someone standing next to him who would take messages and then run the message to the flag person, who would then hoist up the message. \u00a0He gave the image of the man on Nelson\u2019s ship running up the message, \u2018England\u2026expects…that\u2026every\u2026man\u2026\u2019. etc.\u00a0 This started me thinking along two lines.\u00a0 The first was how they were using text but re-invented the look of the text.\u00a0 Instead of letters being represented by lines and squiggles, now it was done with pictures, and a series of pictures could spell a word that someone else could easily understand.\u00a0 Which I guess means that any group can invent their own text.\u00a0 Which brings up my second thought. \u00a0It seems like it would be a long long process to send a message that spelled words out with flags, so I wondered if maybe there was a recognised\u00a0 form of shorthand, and maybe the changes that are being made with text today, now that it\u2019s become a verb, \u2018texting\u2019, in fact go back a long way. \u00a0It would delight me to think that the flag person on Nelson\u2019s ship was putting up a message along the lines of, \u2018CU L8TR\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m not sure if this really satisfies the requirements.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a definition but it is about text, sort of… I was at an art gallery recently to look at the preview of a show that was about to open. \u00a0The pieces were by Canadian artist David Blackwood. \u00a0The gallery was pretty well empty that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":626,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4972],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/626"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540sept09\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}