When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few.

Notes on the Origin of the * Symbol

Aristarchus of Samothrace (220-143 BCE) first used an asterisk symbol when editing Homer in the second century BCE.  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. Aristarchus used the symbols to mark places in Homer’s text that he was copying where he thought passages were from another source. These early asterisks notify the reader that the passage they are reading should be read with caution. 

In the Middle Ages, the asterisk continued to be used flag up text from other sources. 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 to laboriously hand written (or copied) manuscripts.  The change was then added in the margin of the text. This use of the asterisk persists today in the form of a footnote or side note.

By the eighteenth century the asterisk was being deployed in a new manner.  It was a mark of of censorship, covering up letters a vulgar word.  By replacing certain letters with *, the author could write as they pleased but the d**n b****y c**p would not be fully spelling it out so no a**h**e could complain. A similar method is still employed in modern comics, where swear words are usually represented by a series of graphical glyphs, for example%@~#$!, rather than just asterisks. One of the problems with using asterisks to deaden the effect of a swear word is that it just draws attention to it,  

One interesting sidenote (traditionally demarked with an asterisk by the way) is that Jews have recently (19^th Century) begun adding * and – in place of certain letters when writing G-d.  This custom comes from an interpretation of the commandment in Deuteronomy 12:3-4 regarding the destruction of pagan altars. According to the medieval commentator, Rashi, we should not erase or destroy God’s name and should avoid writing it but we have books and invariably, one wishes to refer to G-d so we write something that can be interpreted as such.  Often you see this in Hebrew as יהוה (YHWH) or in English as G-d.  We do this so that should the book you write this is (say it is in Florida for example) it cannot be destroyed.

So, G*d wants you B*****ds to have Free Beer[*].  At least that’s what Ben Franklin tells us when he wrote **Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy**.

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[*] tomorrow

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