At 20:35 +0000 on 11/01/2010, Bill Fairchild wrote about Re: ATTACH:
be sure that your post is just as clear and precise as you wish his
had been. Were it not for Mr. Gilmore's predilection for precise
meanings, I would still be ignorant of the words "antipode" and
"boustrophedon" (the latter of which is big, complex, and arcane,
but amazingly precise).
For those who are wondering but do not want to look the words up, the
former is opposite (usually geographically) - IOW: The opposite
location on the Earth where you drive a vertical line through the
center of the Earth. The latter refers to a style of writing where
alternate lines are written from left to right and right to left (it
is a reference to a method of plowing a field where when you reach
the end of a row you turn around and plow the next row heading back
to your starting location).
This is an example of boustrophedon
.ees nac uoy sa gnitirw
I also have the impression that there were printers which speed up
their print speed by printing alternate lines while returning the
print head to the left. The actual text was thus sent to the print
head in reverse order so it displayed normally.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
