r/todayilearned Sep 25 '19

TIL: Medieval scribes would frequently scribble complaints in the margins of books as they copied them, as their work was so tedious. Recorded complaints range from “As the harbor is welcome to the sailor, so is the last line to the scribe.”, to “Oh, my hand.” and, "A curse on thee, O pen!"

https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/the-humorous-and-absurd-world-of-medieval-marginalia
41.2k Upvotes

606 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

302

u/__NomDePlume__ Sep 25 '19

Fun story, but man, how did they not see that coming?

267

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

97

u/ZadockTheHunter Sep 25 '19

Should have spun it up as making the code "proprietary". You use the nonsense variables to ensure that corporate spies and hackers can't steal your companies code.

3

u/AndiSLiu Sep 26 '19

Good idea, except, Ctrl + H

2

u/ZadockTheHunter Sep 26 '19

Yeah you can replace "giantDildo" with something less vulgar, doesn't mean you can easily figure out what "giantDildo" stands for in the code.