"their own crude writing" [Digest urth.v006.n028]
The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 06 Feb 1998
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/352
With respect to rats writing, I read that as saying
that rats fouled the books with their waste and left
footprints, etc. These tracks and evidences are a
kind of writing in that one can "read" them, gleaning
details of the rat's life.
In this sense, a footprint means "I (a rat) was here".
Check out semiotics for careful definitions of the
difference between a footprint and a drawing of a
footprint and so on.
-John
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