Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the problem

[Pearsons, Enid]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Salovesh [mailto:t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU]
> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 3:11 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Query: the solution to the problem will recreate the
> problem
>
>
> I just thought of an example that has frustrated me more than
> once. What do you call a writing system that begins in a corner, goes in
one
> direction until it comes to the other side of the writing
> surface, then turns around and goes back?  One line is written from left
to
> right, the next from right to left, and so on.  I know that there is a
word for
> that; I even think I remember that its etymology has to do
> with the way oxen (or is that mules or horses?) would pull a simple plow
across a
> field. But I can't look it up until I remember it, at which point I
> won't need to look it up.
 .......
>
> P.S.:  Funny how memory works.  All of a sudden I have the impression
> that the word I seek for a kind of writing system starts, maybe, with
> something like "bucepholo- "  I'll go to the next room and
> check it out in our collection of dictionaries -- on my way to bed, after
I log off
> this system.
>
You're soooooo close.  The word is:

bou·stro·phe·don , n. -- an ancient method of writing in which the lines run
alternately from right to left and from left to right.
[1775-85; ... like ox-turning (in plowing)...]

Don't ask how or why I remembered that.

Enid