Social historians are very fond of labels to differentiate between the various eras of civilisation. We as a species have progressed through the Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age and so on and more recently we have had the Jet Age and the Space Age.
I got to wondering what the historians of the future (if that's not a contradiction in terms) will label the early years of the 21st century. I have a suggestion for them.
I believe we are living in the Dot Age. (as opposed to the dotage which is still to come)
Punctuation has become particularly significant in the era of the personal computer. Whereas in poetry or prose you can get away with poor punctuation and still be understood, try sending an e mail or logging on to a website without a Dot or a forward slash in exactly the right place and see how far you get!
There are many symbols on the keyboard that are essential to the proper use of cyberspace but the Dot is the symbol of the age.
So let's hear it for the Dot!
Also known as a period or full stop the Dot first achieved fame on the communications stage as one half of the double act that brought the world the Morse Code. Since then the Dot has gone from strength to strength and has outgrown its erstwhile code partner in a glorious solo career.
There are for instances many dotcom millionaires, but few, if any, hyphen or slash millionaires - if you don't include the guitarist from Guns'n'Roses.
The Dot epitomises modernity especially when coupled with whole sentences in lower case letters. Many companies have realised that in order to appear to be in tune with the computer age all they have to do is convert their logo to have no capital letters, no spaces and a few seemingly random Dots. No matter that said logo makes no sense or has nothing to do with the product it's trying to sell. The capital letter is dead; long.livethe.dot.
Welcome to the Dot Age.
thank.youandgood.bye;=)
So now if you tell someone they're dotty, it's a compliment meaning they're very up-to-date?
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