Visually symmetric words(johndcook.com)
johndcook.com
Visually symmetric words
https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2022/12/27/visually-symmetric-words/
51 comments
There's also the niche use case of vertically arranged English letters — you see this once in a while on signage, but my favorite example is from _Street Fighter 3,_ where the character DeeJay has pants with "MAXIMUM" written down the leg, which means that you can flip the sprite (i.e. to have the character face left or right) and the word stays intact.
> Street Fighter 3
I think it’s Street Fighter Alpha 3, and it happens in a previous game as well: Super Street Fighter II – see https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/streetfighter/images/8/88/... and https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/streetfighter/images/d/dc/...
I think it’s Street Fighter Alpha 3, and it happens in a previous game as well: Super Street Fighter II – see https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/streetfighter/images/8/88/... and https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/streetfighter/images/d/dc/...
sf4 as well, but not in 6 yet. one assume capcom will have a "classic" costume pack with that one
I once made a little puzzle that involves this idea: https://hcs64.itch.io/fitting-words
Hey that was really good! Took me a minute to figure out the concept and then suddenly 20min was gone, a sign of a good puzzle!
You should totally try expanding on this
You should totally try expanding on this
I spent a minute thinking ROTOR was impossible until I realized the asymmetry in the ruleset. Neat puzzle.
Fun game! I got stuck on Monotone
That was really fun!
Treating 'u' and 'n' as symmetric is a bit cheating. Luckily, they are also rotationally symmetric words, like 'snus' and 'pod'.
I always appreciated the rotational symmetry of “up”/“dn” (as seen on some keyboards in the context of Page up and Page down).
Holy shit. T I L.
Interesting choice of ‘snus’ as the example, rather than ‘suns’
There's an Swedish fantasy role playing game/novel[0] in which there's a city called HOXOH (all uppercase). It's also known as the "City of Illusions" and home to the magical Academy of Illusionists (who are often practicing their art in the streets). It was given its name partly due to the fact that the word could be read and mirrored in any direction without becoming distorted/assymetric.
[0] The RPG is called Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons) and is roughly the Swedish equivalent of D&D, though it's actually based on the BRPG rules. The supplement that introduced HOXOH was eventually used as a basis for a series of (quite interesting) fantasy novels written by the very author that originally wrote the RPG supplement.
[0] The RPG is called Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons) and is roughly the Swedish equivalent of D&D, though it's actually based on the BRPG rules. The supplement that introduced HOXOH was eventually used as a basis for a series of (quite interesting) fantasy novels written by the very author that originally wrote the RPG supplement.
I don't see how you can allow lowercase "m" and "u" as symmetrical without also by the same principles including "n." In which case there are other words like "nun" and "non." Also "MAM" and "MOM" are symmetrical and are words (at least, Scrabble words. He only includes "MAAM" which oddly enough is not a Scrabble word.)
More along those lines here: http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_records.html
More along those lines here: http://www.fun-with-words.com/word_records.html
> He only includes "MAAM" which oddly enough is not a Scrabble word.
What's odd about that? ISNT, DONT, ARENT, COULDNT, SHOULDNT, none of them are Scrabble words. More generally, you're not allowed to misspell words in Scrabble.
What's odd about that? ISNT, DONT, ARENT, COULDNT, SHOULDNT, none of them are Scrabble words. More generally, you're not allowed to misspell words in Scrabble.
I didn't expect to be surprised by this! After thinking about it, it reminds me that game about reading some color names as fast as possible, where the names are painted with another color.
I always liked that "yeah" is point-symmetric if you pick the font right.
If 'm' and 'u' are symmetric, surely 'n' is as well?
UwU
Isn't also the lowercase l and mirror of the upper case I?
"racecar" is a palindrome that you cannot unsee.
Actually "butt tub" is a palindrome that you cannot unsee. Even at a young age I had a very sophisticated sense of humor....
I’ve seen it many times but had to reverify when seeing your comment.
The brand "newman" was a thing when I was a kid.
My mind got blown out the day someone made me notice you could rotate the logo 180 degrees and end up with the same logo.
Wikipedia has the official logo and animation showing it in action:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Man
My mind got blown out the day someone made me notice you could rotate the logo 180 degrees and end up with the same logo.
Wikipedia has the official logo and animation showing it in action:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Man
You can take words that aren’t naturally symmetric and draw them symmetrically. You get ambigrams, like this:
https://scottkim.com/2020/07/17/origami/
https://scottkim.com/2020/07/17/origami/
Probably the most low-effort blog post I've read in a while
Funny enough, I came to the comments section to say how much I enjoy the occasional short post that touches on one thing and moves on.
I don’t need my life to be chock full of deep dives into ideas.
I don’t need my life to be chock full of deep dives into ideas.
Seems like there isn't much material to expand upon "()()" versus "())(".
I prefer this other article about palindromes:
Was It A Cat I Saw? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33285198
I prefer this other article about palindromes:
Was It A Cat I Saw? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33285198
I had to work harder than expected to get this. I interpret the cartoon as distinguishing between meaning and form. Until I read it aloud, I couldn't stop interpreting the strings as
open close open close
in both directions.
open close open close
in both directions.
Thanks for explaining this.. I honestly had no idea, even tried to google it.
Usually John Cook’s blog posts are extremely high quality, so I’ll give him a pass just this once.
Yeah… I was really interested in thinking about how to code a solution and then the post ended.
It’s not that deep. Same algorithm as for palindromes, but with different logical conditions on “equality” / continuation
Perhaps https://youtu.be/qTBAW-Eh0tM at cost of breaking symmetry
What about cursive, where mirroring/rotating does not even produce the same number of letters?
(eg.: google love hate mirror image)
The name of one of the Indian languages "malayalam" is a palindrome, though not visually symmetric.
According to the rules in TFA, this is indeed “visually symmetrical”
Edit: in uppercase only, I suppose
Edit: in uppercase only, I suppose
> According to the rules in TFA, this is indeed “visually symmetrical”
Only if you ignore case and mix uppercase A and lowercase l.
> Edit: in uppercase only, I suppose
Not even. Uppercase L is not a symmetric character.
Only if you ignore case and mix uppercase A and lowercase l.
> Edit: in uppercase only, I suppose
Not even. Uppercase L is not a symmetric character.
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