#Asterix mark series#
Somerset Maugham points out, this has become somewhat outmoded: “We have long passed the Victorian era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.”Ī similar method, however, is still employed in comics, where it is known as grawlix, although the swear words are usually represented by a series of graphical glyphs, for example rather than just asterisks. By the eighteenth century the asterisk was being deployed as a sort of censorship, covering up letters to represent a d**n vulgar word without actually b****y spelling it out. The asterisk (often used interchangeably with the dagger or obelus) persisted as an editing mark but was also frequently used as a caveat, showing that the passage highlighted by the asterisk was served by a footnote or side note. However, when the asterisk was cut into type it was rendered as the five- or six-pointed star, and this is the form that has largely endured. Scribes did not always use the modern asterisk shape, some instead adopting a hooked cross with dots between each arm.
The use of the asterisk by scribes copying the Bible continued with the advent of the printing press early printed Bibles, such as Robert Estienne’s 1532 Latin Bible, make use of an asterisk. The asterisk is also found in medieval texts as a sign of omission. It also was increasingly used as a signe de renvoi (sign of return)-a graphic symbol which indicates where a correction or insertion should be made, with a corresponding mark in the margin with the correct text inserted. In the medieval period the asterisk continued to be employed in the copying of Bibles to flag up text from other sources. Both these early uses of the asterisk are as an editing tool, to notify the reader that the passage they are reading should be read with caution. Origen used the asterisk to demarcate texts that he had added to the Septuagint from the original Hebrew. By the third century Origen of Alexandria had adopted the asterisk when compiling the Hexapla-a Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, the Septuagint. Aristarchus used the symbols to mark places in Homer’s text that he was copying where he thought passages were from another source. Physical examples of Aristarchus’ asterisks have not survived, so we cannot know their physical shape, but as the word asterisk derives from the Greek asteriskos, meaning “little star,” an assumption has been made that they resembled a small star. Palaeographers know that Aristarchus of Samothrace (220–143 bc) used an asterisk symbol when editing Homer in the second century bc, because later scholars wrote about him doing so. These early writings from five thousand years ago are the first known depiction of an asterisk however, it seems unlikely that these pictograms are the forerunner of the symbol we use today. Sumerian pictographic writing includes a sign for “star” that looks like a modern asterisk.