Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 March 12

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March 12

Mistery and mystery

Did the English word "mistery" and "mystery" derive from completely different etymylogical roots? -- Cimon Avaro; on a pogostick. (talk) 07:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

wikt:mistery has some details on this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:11, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

And some more info in EO.[1] Note that "mist" has no apparent connection,[2] though it would kind of make sense if it did. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:22, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Van Morrison would agree. 2603:6081:1C00:1187:B105:198:D408:6E7D (talk) 03:00, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

How to read / format a document

This question deals with both (A) typography and typesetting; and also with (B) the psychology of how the human mind and brain naturally work (and process language).

I was creating a document … after I finished and took a look at my document, this question of mine came about as an after-thought.

Please take a look at the following document. (The original document that I was preparing was very similar.)

When reading this document … it seems that a person has two choices.

Alternative One: to read the document “vertically” … that is, to read the first nine lines on the left-half side of the page … and then to proceed to read the next nine lines on the right-half side of the page. So, vertically read the left side of the page … and then vertically read the right side of the page.

Alternatively … Alternative Two: to read the document “horizontally” … that is, to read the first line, left to right, all the way from the beginning to the end … and then to proceed to the second line … and so forth. So, horizontally, read the first “long line” … and then horizontally read the following eight “long lines”.

Now, I understand that this is probably an “ambiguous” and “gray-area” scenario … and that the “problem” can be “fixed” in various ways.

But, my question is this. Two-fold:

One: From a physical/psychological perspective … how would the human mind and brain naturally work to process language given in this (“ambiguous”) format? … Would the human mind/brain “naturally” lean to Alternative One or to Alternative Two?

Two: From a typography/typesetting perspective … what would be the appropriate way to format this document? … To assume that people would naturally process it via Alternative One or via Alternative Two?

Obviously, my two questions are inter-related.

Thanks.

Also, any other thoughts, insights, factors, considerations, etc., that I may not have raised here?

Side Note: In this exemplar “lorem ipsum” document … I deliberately removed various “triggers” or “clues” … such as capitalization, punctuation, commas, periods, etc. … that might lead to “bias” in the responses. Also, I deliberately removed the “real” text of the document, for the same reason … and thus employed the “lorem ipsum” text to replace the “real” text … to avoid any triggers or clues or bias.

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

P.S. I don't really know how to upload files to Wikipedia ... but it seems that I managed. This document (a PDF file) looks a lot nicer, cleaner, crisper on my home computer ... than it looks here below ... for whatever reason ... (resolution?) ... here, it looks more fuzzy and blurry ...  :(

My Document - lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

Using ellipses to take the place of commas is highly unorthodox, and, to my eyes, somewhat off-putting. But hey, unorthodoxy worked for e e cummings, so ... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:14, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

People will read it in whichever way you least wanted them to. See Don't Dead Open Inside.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:31, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I think the use of ragged left indentation for the left-hand column and ragged right for the right-hand column, would lead me (initially, at least) to read it "vertically". But maybe that's just me. If you wanted to be sure of a vertical reading, two flush-left, ragged-right columns (with the consequent varying spaces between them) would be the best way. Deor (talk) 19:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Poetry is often printed with centred lines, so having the left column ranged right and the right column ranged left makes the overall document look to me like a single column of split lines (the width of the inter-columnular space is obviously important). This would be a valid way to display, for example, the styles of Anglo-Saxon, Greek and Latin poetry that were deliberately written in metrical half-lines (two hemistichs separated by a caesura). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.122.108 (talk) 22:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Before reading the lengthy question I looked at the thumbnail and realized there was an ambiguity. I tried to resolve it by guessing the intention of its maker. My first idea wa that this was a roundabout way to obtain centred text by dividing each line roughly in two and then setting the left halves right-adjusted and the right halves left-adjusted. Phrasing the question as "how would the human mind and brain naturally work" in such a case presumes there is a "natural" approach, something that is not obviously so. A first issue is whether the ambiguity is immediately noticed at all. That will depend on previous exposure to formats, as may be the initial interpretation attempt if ambiguity is noticed. Someone who works in a printshop specializing in fancy high-class wedding announcements and menu cards whose layout tends to be a single centred column is more likely to think the gutter is an unseemly artifact. As to the blurriness of the text, PDF images get converted to JPEG for display. PDF is not an image type generally supported by browsers.^[3]  --Lambiam 07:56, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

It makes me think of Old English poetry which often divides each line in two, marked with a wide space. —Tamfang (talk) 05:32, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Tamfang -- the technical term for a mid-line break in poetry is Caesura... -- AnonMoos (talk) 22:56, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, one of them things there. —Tamfang (talk) 01:37, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Much appreciated. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:48, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

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