Also derived from "bous" is the endearing nickname Bossie for a cow.

I like that! Thanks, and welcome aBoard.

I liked finding out that buos was the actual word for ox. It helps make sense of boustrophedon, as the ox plows. I teach typography, and boustrophedic is how we describe the way ancient scripts were written in times before most cultures decided on a regular way to put down words on paper (such as we do, from left to right, and then down to the next line, and then from left to right again). Many cultures wrote in boustrophedic fashion.

Interesting fact, yes, one which I had placed on the
back burner until you brought it up. Thanks.

tsuwm! One more time, please? [batting eyelashes e]

or perhaps, better, boustrophedonic

(I don't suppose I addressed your question, J.)

Oh, don't you remember it? Or are you going to make me LIU?

oh..
you must be thinking of this (although I don't know what made me think of it, given your vague reference..)

Strange new words I relish,
Like nectar or tonic.
I now know my line printer
Is boustrophedonic.

and I also recall that, when this was posted wayback in 2002 (or so), we hashed out that line printers didn't really print boustrophedonically. (they had to reverse the letters in the reversed path so you could actually read them! but still..)

Back when I was a kid, when line printers were line printers, they didn't print anything like boustrophedonically. They printed a whole line at once. They had 80 type wheels that lined up to the characters that were to be printed and then, Wham! they printed the whole line. Kids these days don't know what it was like back in the Golden Age.

Ohh-hhh, thank you! And gosh, yes, if I see boustro- anything, I have to see/hear the rhythm of that little verse!

It's a walz Jackie, a Viennese waltz with chocolate and whipped cream.

chocolate and whipped cream No, no, Branny, weren't you listening? It's got relish, nectar, and tonic. Yes, you may kill me now.

I like that. And I wasn't around when it was first posted....who wrote it?

Yes, yes, sure, but how combine a Viennese walz with relish, nectar and tonic? Very jambolic. Happy J-day!

jambolic I love it! And, thank you. Sorry to be so tardy replying. I have had more-than-a-cold-but-not-quite-the-flu for weeks now, and even now I'm still coughing some. One of those thought-I-was-about-well-then-it-slammed-me-again things.