Showing posts with label Paragraph. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paragraph. Show all posts

Apr 3, 2013

Wordology, Pilcrow

The pilcrow was used in the Middle Ages to mark a new train of thought, before the convention of physically discrete paragraphs was commonplace.

The pilcrow originated as a letter C, for capitulum, or chapter in Latin. This C was the symbol that replaced in the function of marking off paragraphs the Greek-style paragraphos, and other symbols including the section sign.


It is now used in word processing software and page layout programs to mark the presence of a typewriter style carriage return control character at the end of a paragraph. Most programs allow the user to turn on or off the symbol to visualize page layout.