| Ted Nelson who coined the term _hypertext_ in _1963_ claimed in Werner Herzog’s documentary “Lo and Behold” that his original idea for “copy and paste” would always link back to the original. This article below based on the Herzog interview has more context but not the exact _quote_ (context pun intended) that I remember from the documentary. Full interview of Ted Nelson from “Lo and Behold”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqx6li5dbEY > Nelson, who was featured in Werner Herzog’s latest film, Lo and Behold, believes that instead of the existing formats we use online, where text often mirrors the constraints of paper, we should have a system of two-way links that would allow readers to see the context of any quotation... > There are a few offline examples, such as the Talmud and the Rosetta Stone, where text is read side-by-side. Nelson believes this is how online documents should be constructed. > “As far as I’m concerned, this is the way literature should develop,” he says. “I don’t consider this technology, I think it’s literature. Being able to see visible connections between pages seems to me absolutely fundamental.” > Nelsons says this setup would be the ideal format for reading annotations, additional details, correspondence, and disagreements: “It’s essentially a different genre of writing.” > As Nelson sees it, our current use of online documents is very limiting. He’s particularly disturbed by how we use the words cut and paste. When the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, cut came to mean “hide this piece that I’ve just marked in an invisible place,” and paste became “plug whatever’s in this invisible place to where I’m pointing.” > “To me that was an outrage because no one has yet got a decent re-arrangement system that allows you to see the all the parts of the arrangement as you’re writing,” Nelson says. “Those words meant something entirely different until 1984. > Balzac, the French novelist, carried a razor blade around his neck for cutting up his manuscript. Tolstoy would cut up his manuscripts and leave all the pieces around the floor. This is true cut-and-paste, where you’re re-arranging on a large scale and able to see the relationships between parts.” > Ironically, Nelson is friends with Larry Tesler—the man responsible for our modern use of cut and paste—but still calls their mislabeling “a crime against humanity.” https://qz.com/778747/an-early-internet-pioneer-says-the-con... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson |