I get excited about &.

1. 

   @TomScottGo

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   There are some fascinating topics that it's really difficult to come up with a title for. | 🔐AD: Keep your personal data safe with Incogni (and with Ben): https://incogni.com/tomscott

2. 

   @theJE55

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   I studied Linguistics, and am absolutely losing it watching this 🤯 The importance on some of these books to the history of the English Language cannot be overstated. Priceless indeed!

3. 

   @williamdacic

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   Admit it. You were there for the Book of Cagliostro.

4. 

   @Gamerglotzer

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   I have expeced that old books like these are being stored in a climate controlled room and never should be touched

5. 

   @NiktheGreek7

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   I'd be willing to bet good $$$ that while antihumanitarian wouldn't touch it, private collectors would if they intent for that item to never be seen by anyone else ever again.

6. 

   @teegeevee42

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   21:35 Tom being his own parent.

7. 

   @Beefhaving

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   19:35 then i guess the sci-fi trope of "humans advance really fast and keep accelerating at it" is officially dead 🤣

8. 

   @TwoWholeWorms

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   "Priceless, irreplaceable, completely unique books" Anthropic has joined the chat. 😐

9. 

   @saadschannel1

   July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

   tell them to watch out for anthropic

10. 

    @kelcifer-I

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Good thing they are. Hopefully they won't end up being "destructively scanned."

11. 

    @cindiwarnier4759

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    I'm sure this was mentioned, but I'm surprised to see that gloves were not worn in the handling of the codexices. 🤔

12. 

    @kesakhan

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    So….. when's the wedding?

13. 

    @NatsumenoKage

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    I can think of one company that would buy a book stolen from there.

14. 

    @swopesparklerz

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    relevant (fiction) book rec: Lost Book of the Grail by Charlie Lovett

15. 

    @lvncee

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Now I'm getting excited about &mpersands.

16. 

    @pblivingston

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    "Most technologies" including multicellular organisms.

17. 

    @DreamerTheWolfFox

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    5:00 man that really was that simple that NO ONE realized that that is kinda funny

18. 

    @glygriffe

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    I get excited about & too!

19. 

    @imcubanb2870

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    8:37 I could find a buyer.

20. 

    @AB-wg1bu

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    These two are so vibing.. or is it just me?

21. 

    @NPinto-nw9vd

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Old game called ZZT, by Potomac Computer Systems, came out in 1991. ASCII-based, and came with its own editor. I played and made myriad of boards with it when I was young. Anyway, one of the boards in the main game lets you find an object, a "&". You collect it, and it says "You've found an ampersand!". I was little, so I didn't know it WASN'T some kind of fancy gem. Been fond of ampersands since I learned what they are thanks to Mental Floss. BTW, that company became Epic Games 😃

22. 

    @TorreFernand

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    from memory, "codex" meant "this book is not on a scroll, it's been cut into pieces, each with a code called a 'page number'."

23. 

    @brigrockwell9965

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    I'm a fan of Tom's miniature versions of things.

24. 

    @BakeBakePi

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    &

25. 

    @seth009eg

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    i'd love to see a general series behind the scenes when this series is done: how did u plan everything before embarking on the "road trip"? was it actually a road trip? or did u go back home in between shoots? how did u handle research and organization of visits while he was on other trips? stuff like that

26. 

    @Dexx_p

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Ook, ook. Eek?

27. 

    @EduardQualls

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    @16:35 For those who would like a taste of the original, late-medieval, c. 1395 orthography of the pictured manuscript of Wycliffe's NT, here is as close an approximation as Unicode and the YouTube comment font will allow. Starting mid-ninth line from the bottom, through middle last line:

    "but at þe laſte whānne þe euleuene diſciplis ſaaten at þe mete: ihc̄ apperide to hē 7 reprouede þe unbileue of hē : 7 þe hardneſſe of herte for þa bileeuedē not to hē ỹ haddē ſeē ỹ he was risun fro deþ 7 he ſeide to hē / go ye unto al þe world : 7 preche þe goſpel to ech creature. uuho þat bileueþ 7 is baptiſid: ſhal be ſaif but he þat bileueþ not: ſhal be dāpned 7 þes tokens ſhulenſue: hē þat bileuen ī mẏ name: þei ſhulen caſte out fendis / þei ſhulen ſpeke wiþ newe tūgis …"

    For reference, the later, 1526 edition of Tyndale's version of "Mark":
    
    After that he appered vnto the eleven as they sate at meate: and caſt in their teche their vnbelefe/ād hardnes off herte: be cauſe they beleved not them which had ſene hym after his reſurreccion. And he ſayd vnto them. Goo ye in to all the woorlde / and preache the goſpell to all creaturs: Whoſoever beleveth / and ys babtiſed / ſhalbe ſafe: And whoſoever beleveth nott / ſhalbe dampned. And theſe ſignes ſhall folowe them that beleve: In my name ſhall caſt oute devyls/and ſhall ſpeake with newe tonges…

    Notes on the manuscript text:
    (1) '7' is used for the medieval ampersand, as is standard in modern renderings of Anglo-Saxon/Middle English texts;
    (2) what looks like a 'y' (sometimes a 'p') in the text is actually 'þ', the letter "thorn," so I used that earlier letterform here—a 'y' is differentiated by its curly tail—and 'ỹ' is an abbreviation for "that";
    (3) a line over a vowel means it's followed by an 'n' or 'm' in pronunciation;
    (4) a dot over a (real) 'y' is a following 'n';
    (5) neither the difference between 'u' and 'v', nor the letter 'w' yet existed as such in Tyndale's time;
    (6) "long s" and "short s" are used according to their appearance in the manuscript;
    (7) "ihc̄ is the standard manuscript abbreviation for "Jesus," coming from the (medieval) Greek form "ΙΗCΟΥC".

    Grammar note: "hē" is the original, Anglo-Saxon "hem" which is the third person plural, objective case. The form "them" (as with "they," and "their") was borrowed from Old Norse, with its use moving slowly from the Danelaw/Midlands into London English over the following century. (You will find both forms in Chaucer, with complete replacement by the mid-Tudor period.)

28. 

    @pknight7572

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    I could watch hours of a tour through that library.
    Also, are the books spit and greasy finger safe? 🙂

29. 

    @reggieosbourne

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    The 1500’s… given the fact that toilet paper was a 1800’s thing I bet you could find a founding father’s dookie DNA remnants somewhere in there

30. 

    @kreolebean8287

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    I’m glad you’re back Tom.

31. 

    @cypher50

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Being in any library where a medieval (or older) copy of the Justinian Codex is on the shelf is crazy.

32. 

    @route2070

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    After thar outro, I'm just going to be quietly chanting, monorail, monorail, monorail.

33. 

    @dimitrithomas4019

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    tom's subtitle game is one of the best on this website and i respect him so much for being a real professional and putting these 10 mil sub channels with no captions to shame

34. 

    @bobthestinky7369

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    And now AI companies are apparently buying old codexes like these, smashing them for their LLM then shedding them. Incredibly sad if true.

35. 

    @tomweller8284

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Multiple hands, multiple fingers, it's just too effing awkward.

36. 

    @nilsgensert5814

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Tom having a lot of epiphanies in this one, such as "chained books are chained" and "manuscript means written by hand".

37. 

    @Navoii.

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    So no conspiracy theories today? Aw…

38. 

    @BulletWilliam

    July 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

    Incogni is a subsidiary of a data broker company..

Comments are closed.