Template:In writing capsule

“In writing” means recorded for posterity, in words ingestable by means of the eyes, as opposed to the ears. This is not the OED definition, I grant you — I made it up just now — but it zeroes in on the immutable fact that, whether it is on parchment, paper, cathode ray tube, LED screen or electronic reader, you take in writing by looking at it. Not orally — from the mouth — or for that matter, aurally — to the ears nor, in the JC’s favourite example, via semaphore, by a chap waving flags from a distant hill, but in visible sentences, made up of visual words.