Q: describing how one reads text

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:13 AM -0400 6/7/09, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>Is there a word to describe how one's eye moves when reading
>(Occidental) text -- horizontally along the line, then down one line
>and back to the starting edge?
>
>I have a very faint recollection of a word that applies to text where
>one went one line down but continued reading from the edge that was
>the end of the preceding line (that is, left to right, then right to
>left, etc.) -- but it's so faint that all I seem to remember is that
>it began with a "b".
>
Boustrophedon, from the Greek words _bous_ for 'ox, cow' (cf.
"butter") and _strophe_ for 'turn' (as the chorus in a Greek play
does).  The idea is that you're reading/writing the way oxen (who
lack a carriage return) plow a field.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org