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Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Ambigram of_the_word_ambigram_-_rotation_animation.gif, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for August 1, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-08-01. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! — Amakuru ( talk) 17:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
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An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design with multiple interpretations as written words. Alternative meanings are often yielded when the design is transformed or the observer moves, but they can also result from a shift in mental perspective. This animation shows a half-turn ambigram of the word ambigram. The word is written calligraphically with 180-degree rotational symmetry, such that it reads identically when viewed upside down. Calligraphy and animation credit: Basile Morin
Recently featured:
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Hello Basile Morin, thank you for pointing out that the "New Man" logo was already used in the article. Sorry I missed that! (I was quite surprised that I didn't see it, hence the hasty mistake: Measure once, cut twice; Measure twice, cut once.) There is another good image of the logo on commons, if there's any point in showing both the static artwork and the animated gif file (e.g., the animation in the section where I inadvertently placed it, and the artwork in the "Logos" section where the animation is now). Cheers, Cl3phact0 ( talk) 08:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
This point is brought up in Talk:Ambigram#Original_research,_original_artwork above, but I'm not so much concerned about OR as much as the sheer volume of images in the article. In principle, I don't think having more than a handful of examples for each specific "type" of ambigram is needed, especially when we multiply method, media, and purpose.
Consider that we have the following and more:
A distinct combination of each would be 100 images, and sure enough I count over 100 images in this article. Moreover, for the specific combination of "rotational, digital, art" I count roughly a dozen, even excluding some which arguably fall under another purpose e.g. political/commercial messaging. I don't think an encyclopedic article about ambigrams actually benefits from such an excess of examples -- surely someone will have a firm grasp of the concept of a "rotational ambigram" after just two or three examples?
It seems to me that even though there is no "gallery" per se, it's as though a "former" or "potential" gallery has been broken up across the whole article to avoid falling under WP:GALLERY. There is a whole lot of sandwiching going on which makes the article a chore to read even at full-width. Corporal ( talk) 17:49, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
This article is about a remarkable visual thing, and the images in an article like this are especially important. It is a strength of Wikipedia that it can be generous with visual images.Thank you, Åüñîçńøł for making your point so clearly. I agree: this is not a "less, but better" ( German: Weniger, aber besser) article; it is a more is more article – if ever there was one. -- Cl3phact0 ( talk) 20:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Not too many?
Hi everyone, a majority wants to keep these examples in the article? Excellent . Glad you enjoy them, really!
Åüñîçńøł, you cancelled the modification after
I proposed to revert it by myself. Proof that I am quite inclined to argue and accept opposing arguments here. But Corporal suggested such "improvement" or transformation. Hence the modification. However, "
A picture is worth a thousand words", several of us share this idea. I also agree with
Cl3phact0 that "Some readers are naturally inclined towards visual learning". Especially in a field dealing with ambiguous visual objects.
To finish, I appreciate
Åüñîçńøł's statement: "This article is about a remarkable visual thing, and the images in an article like this are especially important. It is a strength of Wikipedia that it can be generous with visual images." For the record
here's the current version (restored). Thanks --
Basile Morin (
talk)
02:06, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
I think the article’s first sentence needs to be reconsidered. Here are four reasons that I say that — followed by my suggestion:
1) The first sentence says: “An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design with multiple interpretations as written words.” The first illustration in the article (the animation of the word “ambigram”) has only one interpretation, but it gets repeated. (As opposed to the example further down in the article that, when rotated, says “Fake” and then “Real”.) The first sentence is wrong as it excludes the article’s first example.
2) the first sentence is not clear when it says: An ambigram is a design with “interpretations as written words.” A word can’t possibly include an interpretation of itself. The interpretation is for the reader not the word itself.
3) The first sentence refers to “calligraphic or typographic design” — calligraphic or typographic distinguishes between words that are written and those that are printed. But then at the end, the sentence changes its mind (so to speak) and excludes printed words by only mentioning “written words”.
4) The first sentence is based on a quote by Douglas R. Hofstadter. The source quote begins: “An ambigram is a visual pun”, then Hofstadter goes on to qualify that phrase. The article leaves out the beginning of Hofstadter’s definition, and only includes the qualifying part. That misrepresents the source.
There are a lot of definitions available, most don’t use the word “interpretation”. The word’s definition is complicated, and is best understood by example. Based on what I’ve read, I’ll suggest a possible first sentence that I think might be better:
“An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design, usually of a word or phrase, which becomes a kind of visual pun when the the word or phrase is turned upside down, flipped sideways, or given some other change to the reader’s orientation.” GümsGrammatiçus ( talk) 18:18, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Revisiting our first sentence after some time away from the question, my view is that it has again become too larded with extra words and wikilinks (see
KISS principle). This version (again, in my view) was better: An ambigram is a composition of letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation.
Cheers,
Cl3phact0 (
talk)
11:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Only if rotated 180°. If rotated 90° it becomes "2002" (with slight typographic licence), or "ZOOZ" (if also reflected using horizontal mirror symmetry). If simply reflected (per previous), the "N" becomes "ᴎ" [NB: Unicode Character (U+1D0E)]. -- Cl3phact0 ( talk) 06:26, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Ambigram article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ambigram was featured in a WikiWorld cartoon. Click the image to the right for full size version. |
![]() |
|
|||||
This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III. |
Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Ambigram of_the_word_ambigram_-_rotation_animation.gif, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for August 1, 2023. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2023-08-01. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! — Amakuru ( talk) 17:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
![]() |
An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design with multiple interpretations as written words. Alternative meanings are often yielded when the design is transformed or the observer moves, but they can also result from a shift in mental perspective. This animation shows a half-turn ambigram of the word ambigram. The word is written calligraphically with 180-degree rotational symmetry, such that it reads identically when viewed upside down. Calligraphy and animation credit: Basile Morin
Recently featured:
|
Hello Basile Morin, thank you for pointing out that the "New Man" logo was already used in the article. Sorry I missed that! (I was quite surprised that I didn't see it, hence the hasty mistake: Measure once, cut twice; Measure twice, cut once.) There is another good image of the logo on commons, if there's any point in showing both the static artwork and the animated gif file (e.g., the animation in the section where I inadvertently placed it, and the artwork in the "Logos" section where the animation is now). Cheers, Cl3phact0 ( talk) 08:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
This point is brought up in Talk:Ambigram#Original_research,_original_artwork above, but I'm not so much concerned about OR as much as the sheer volume of images in the article. In principle, I don't think having more than a handful of examples for each specific "type" of ambigram is needed, especially when we multiply method, media, and purpose.
Consider that we have the following and more:
A distinct combination of each would be 100 images, and sure enough I count over 100 images in this article. Moreover, for the specific combination of "rotational, digital, art" I count roughly a dozen, even excluding some which arguably fall under another purpose e.g. political/commercial messaging. I don't think an encyclopedic article about ambigrams actually benefits from such an excess of examples -- surely someone will have a firm grasp of the concept of a "rotational ambigram" after just two or three examples?
It seems to me that even though there is no "gallery" per se, it's as though a "former" or "potential" gallery has been broken up across the whole article to avoid falling under WP:GALLERY. There is a whole lot of sandwiching going on which makes the article a chore to read even at full-width. Corporal ( talk) 17:49, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
This article is about a remarkable visual thing, and the images in an article like this are especially important. It is a strength of Wikipedia that it can be generous with visual images.Thank you, Åüñîçńøł for making your point so clearly. I agree: this is not a "less, but better" ( German: Weniger, aber besser) article; it is a more is more article – if ever there was one. -- Cl3phact0 ( talk) 20:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Not too many?
Hi everyone, a majority wants to keep these examples in the article? Excellent . Glad you enjoy them, really!
Åüñîçńøł, you cancelled the modification after
I proposed to revert it by myself. Proof that I am quite inclined to argue and accept opposing arguments here. But Corporal suggested such "improvement" or transformation. Hence the modification. However, "
A picture is worth a thousand words", several of us share this idea. I also agree with
Cl3phact0 that "Some readers are naturally inclined towards visual learning". Especially in a field dealing with ambiguous visual objects.
To finish, I appreciate
Åüñîçńøł's statement: "This article is about a remarkable visual thing, and the images in an article like this are especially important. It is a strength of Wikipedia that it can be generous with visual images." For the record
here's the current version (restored). Thanks --
Basile Morin (
talk)
02:06, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
I think the article’s first sentence needs to be reconsidered. Here are four reasons that I say that — followed by my suggestion:
1) The first sentence says: “An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design with multiple interpretations as written words.” The first illustration in the article (the animation of the word “ambigram”) has only one interpretation, but it gets repeated. (As opposed to the example further down in the article that, when rotated, says “Fake” and then “Real”.) The first sentence is wrong as it excludes the article’s first example.
2) the first sentence is not clear when it says: An ambigram is a design with “interpretations as written words.” A word can’t possibly include an interpretation of itself. The interpretation is for the reader not the word itself.
3) The first sentence refers to “calligraphic or typographic design” — calligraphic or typographic distinguishes between words that are written and those that are printed. But then at the end, the sentence changes its mind (so to speak) and excludes printed words by only mentioning “written words”.
4) The first sentence is based on a quote by Douglas R. Hofstadter. The source quote begins: “An ambigram is a visual pun”, then Hofstadter goes on to qualify that phrase. The article leaves out the beginning of Hofstadter’s definition, and only includes the qualifying part. That misrepresents the source.
There are a lot of definitions available, most don’t use the word “interpretation”. The word’s definition is complicated, and is best understood by example. Based on what I’ve read, I’ll suggest a possible first sentence that I think might be better:
“An ambigram is a calligraphic or typographic design, usually of a word or phrase, which becomes a kind of visual pun when the the word or phrase is turned upside down, flipped sideways, or given some other change to the reader’s orientation.” GümsGrammatiçus ( talk) 18:18, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Revisiting our first sentence after some time away from the question, my view is that it has again become too larded with extra words and wikilinks (see
KISS principle). This version (again, in my view) was better: An ambigram is a composition of letters, numbers, symbols or other shapes that can yield different meanings depending on the orientation of observation.
Cheers,
Cl3phact0 (
talk)
11:57, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
Only if rotated 180°. If rotated 90° it becomes "2002" (with slight typographic licence), or "ZOOZ" (if also reflected using horizontal mirror symmetry). If simply reflected (per previous), the "N" becomes "ᴎ" [NB: Unicode Character (U+1D0E)]. -- Cl3phact0 ( talk) 06:26, 15 June 2024 (UTC)