Alphabetical Order
2021-12-01 · 32 min · episode 468 · 10 entities
Asserted relationships
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evidence rules-v4
author of A Place For Everything
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Feed author/publisher: Roman Mars
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Arts
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evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Design
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evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars
Entities found in this episode
books 2
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0.72
evidence rules-v4
author of A Place For Everything
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0.62
evidence rules-v4
author of A Place For Everything
persons 2
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0.70
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Feed author/publisher: Roman Mars
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0.55
evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: Roman Mars
companys 2
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0.70
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Feed author/publisher: SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars
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0.40
evidence rules-v4
Feed author/publisher: SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars
concepts 2
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0.50
evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Arts
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0.40
evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Arts
websites 2
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0.50
evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Design
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0.40
evidence rules-v4
Feed category: Design
Episode description as stored
In much of the western world, alphabetical order is simply a default we take for granted. It’s often the one we try first -- or the one we use as a last resort when all the other ordering methods fail. It’s boring, but it works, and it’s so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine not using it. But despite its endurance for most of its history, the alphabet wasn’t initially used to order much of anything. Judith Flanders, author of A Place For Everything, a history of alphabetical order, says that in societies like ancient Rome and early medieval Europe, writing implements were still rare. So what mattered most was organizing knowledge in a way that helped you to memorize it. And that was usually much easier to do in the order you naturally came across the information, like: chronologically, or by size, or geography, or region, or hierarchically.
Alphabetical Order
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