If you've ever communicated with me by email, or if your blog displays icons for commenters and I've commented on it, you've probably seen this mysterious little monogram.
People often get confused by this, try to read the white bits as letters, and think it says buna or bona or something. In fact, it's just my first name, William, and you read it like so:
 |
W
|
 |
illi
|
 |
| a |
 |
m
|
Because its just as (marginally) legible upside down as right-side up, it's an ambigram -- text which can be read in two different ways -- and longtime readers will know that I used to make quite a lot of these, and even had
a blog devoted to them.
I bring this up now because Alex Pietrow of
makeambigrams.com has just posted
an interview with me (part of a series of interviews with, ahem, "notable people in the field") about my brief ambigramming career. Check it, and Alex's site, out if you have any interest in that sort of thing.
3 comments:
Impressive. Do you have a design background? You have many talents. Now see if you can't make a meaningful and insightful blog post that is also an ambigram.
Sorry. It’s good to know you think I can do it but, as unwilling as I am to disappoint my loyal fans, I’m going to say no. Although I admit that it’s an intriguing thought, and that I’m kind of good at that sort of thing (call it a knack), in all candor, writing a non-trivial (to say nothing of “insightful”!) blog post which is also a giant ambigram is just too hard for anybody to actually pull off.
Still, I find that I’m just too much of a narcissist to pass up this opportunity to show off my gifts as what you might call a natural-born wordplay virtuoso. So that’s why I’m writing this fairly long string of words without using our Roman script’s fifth and most common glyph.
What can I say? This is who I am, and this is what I do!
Bravo! All should applaud you for your goodwill. The fifth symbol from our ABC's is obviously working far too much for our aims, without so much as a catnap. It is kind of you to show sympathy on this occasion.
Bravo again, I say. This is as long as I wish to try.
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