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I love apostrophes!!  I've a huge appetite for 'em and learnin' when and where to use 'em mo' 'fectively. Conjunctions 'n' possessives give me the thrills o' economy 'n' ownership. I'd be sorry to let 'em go. Cain't imagine the world o' the paragraph without 'em. 'Sides, they be sech l'il Edit: li'l bitty ol' thin's what's represented by such a whopper o' a word. They ain't restricted by region fo' they be country and they be O'Irish 'mongst other thin's. L'il drops o' rain in the landscape o' sentences--that's a l'il Edit: li'l o' what they carryin' out 'cross the page. B'sides: They give the pinky finger a workout. B''t r'gards, W''dwin'
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Carpal Tunnel
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from Greek strephein, to turn: strophe = chorus turns right. antistrophe = chorus turns left Stanza
means chorus stands still and sings four lines. And for good measure "boustrophedon" means writing
as Hebrew which as did primitive plowing go alternately right and left.
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Oh, thank you, Dr. Bill, for reminding me of that wonderful verse tsuwm posted:
strange new words I relish
like nectar or tonic
I now know my line printer
is boustrophedonic
David P. Stern
Science magazine http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=939
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Carpal Tunnel
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I now know my line printer
is boustrophedonic
Technically a line printer is neither strophe, antistrophe nor even boustrophe, printing as it does, a whole line all to once going nor right nor left.
And Dub', l'il?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Boustrophedon == back and forth, the way an ox plows a field (bous = ox): go to end of row, then turn about and make the next row in the opposite direction, then turn back again at end of next row, repeat ad libitum
Hebrew writing == more like a "raster pattern," the sweep signal on a TV screen: every row same direction, get to end and go back to beginning to start next row. But right-to-left instead of the more usual Western left-to-right.
Strophe/antistrophe == turn to right/turn to left. I had made up that it had something to do with the kind of sentiments voiced, but this is so much simpler and more elegant. A Classical antecedent of the later form "On the one hand blahblahblah, but on the other hand moreblahblahblah ...", perhaps?
And stanza == standing still while declaiming four lines. How inevitable! Why didn't I think of that a long time ago!
Maybe I should stop making up "plausible explanations." :-) (Oops, gave myself away, of course I meant "figuring things out for myself" !)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, Faldage.
I do love apostrophes and enjoy fine-tunin' 'em...so I should have written li'l and happily stand kerrected.
WW
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Dunno bout no Hebrews but the Greeks used to write like that.
Start writing one way keep going till you run out of line
tuo nur uoy llit yaw rehto eht etirw dna dnuora nrut neht
of space that way and back you go like the first line.
Only they turned the letters around too, so a b in one direction would be a d in the other a p one way a q the other. Now that I think about it I do remember reading the ancient Semites did it too. They settled down on right to left and the Greeks settled down on left to right.
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Start writing one way keep going till you run out of line
tuo nur uoy llit yaw rehto eht etirw dna dnuora nrut neht
of space that way and back you go like the first line.
that was cool...
.taht fo erom od s'tel
[elims]
formerly known as etaoin...
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And it's only marginally more difficult
sretnirp emoS .yaw lamron eht gnipyt naht
*did print that way, spooling up a line
neve na erew ti fi ti gnisrever neht dna
numbered line.
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There is the difficulty of deciding where
hcihw dna neppah lliw skaerb enil eht
words to use on which line. but it does cause one(at least
[kniw] !aedi doog a eb thgim hcihw ,daeha kniht ot (em
(but which way should those ellipses be?) hmmm...
formerly known as etaoin...
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