We Still Scroll, Long After the Parchment
A scroll is a rolled length of writing material. The computer sense borrows the image directly: text moving past a fixed window, as it does on a rolled manuscript.
A scroll is a roll of parchment or paper carrying writing. The computing verb is not a loose metaphor but a precise one: reading a scroll means unrolling one end while rolling the other, so text passes a fixed window — which is exactly what a screen does. The technology changed twice; the gesture did not.
- A rolled manuscript. *The Dead Sea Scrolls.*
- To move text on a screen. *Scroll down to continue.*
- An ornamental spiral. *A carved scroll.*
- Doomscrolling — reading bad news compulsively. *An evening of doomscrolling.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | scroll | An ancient scroll. |
| Plural | scrolls | Sealed scrolls. |
| Verb | scroll | Scroll up. |
| Continuous | scrolling | Endless scrolling. |
| Compound | scrollbar | Drag the scrollbar. |
- The scroll was too fragile to unroll.The object.
- Scroll to the bottom and accept.Screens.
- I lost an hour to doomscrolling.Coined around 2020.
Scroll or codex?
- Scroll — one continuous surface, read by unrolling
- Codex — separate leaves bound at one edge, the ancestor of the book
- Why the codex won — you can open it at any page and write on both sides
- When it changed — the codex overtook the scroll in the first few centuries AD
- The screen — returned us, oddly, to the scroll
Middle English *scrowle*, an alteration of *scrowe*, a strip of parchment, influenced by *roll*. The same Old French source also gave English *escrow*.
Are scroll and escrow related?
Yes. Both go back to Old French escroe, a strip or scrap of parchment. An escrow was originally a written deed held by a third party.
What is doomscrolling?
Compulsively scrolling through distressing news. The word spread widely in 2020.