> From what I understand, until comparatively modern times,
> reading was a generally more tortuous process. You mumbled
> the words as you read them, and usually made more than one
> pass of each passage to figure out its meaning. Of course,
> the lack of things that we take for granted, like punctuation,
> capitalization, paragraphs, word breaks and standardized
> spelling all make it harder, as do personal abbreviations.
> On top of that, add in that most LM worshippers have probably
> only read at most a few hundred works (if they apprenticed
> at a major temple, perhaps only dozens if they were at a
> lesser temple) and yes, reading is far from a straightforward
> activity.
Plus, you're talking about English. LM's got three scripts, two vocabularies and a code! And they only teach it to other LMs! And they're super rare among the clans, so there's a vast pool of wasted talent!
I kind of figured that LM must have some sort of general book protector in his mini-pantheon to justify how the darn books stay together and vaguely legible in the first place!
Roland