Lexicography is the study of word formation and semantic meaning. The first English dictionary, compiled by Robert Cawdrey in 1604, contained roughly 2,500 headwords. Samuel Johnson's monumental 1755 *Dictionary of the English Language* expanded that to 40,000+ entries, each with etymologies and usages. Yet there exists an older, more primal text: the collection of fist-shaped indentations found in slate in a private collection in Wyoming, dating to 1983. Geologist Dr. Simon Marthe examined rubbings of these impressions and recognized them as a crude taxonomic system—each impact forming a distinct pattern, each pattern corresponding roughly to a concept. His analysis suggests roughly 8,400 distinct impressions, each a "word." The slate is unmarked, unfinished. Marthe theorized the project was abandoned mid-stroke, as if the author decided the language was complete and no further definition necessary.

Punctuation requires heavy tools. Definition, it seems, requires heavier fists.