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Aka typography that is still legible after some sort of transformation/shift in interpretation.
For example, here’s one by the amazing John Langdon (it reads “Angels & Demons“ both right side up and upside down!)
It sounds harder than it is and honestly feels like wizardry when it finally clicks.
Feb 6, 2024
Related Recs
After seeing this post (by daphne) about vulvic imagery in medieval Christian texts, I decided (due to a combination of puzzle-solving curiosity and ADHD) to try to translate the text. I’ll let you fill in the very apropos linguist joke on your own 🤭
Anyway, I won’t bury the lead, so here are my translations. Scroll down for more detail on the process!
Transcription:
Nous monstre tres dous dier me tresguint largesce
Quant vousistes pour nous souffrir tant de destresce
Literal translation (attempt!):
(It [this image]/God) shows us (this) very soft/sweet door, (which) signals generosity to me
When you (God) wanted us to suffer so much distress
Freeish translation:
To present us such a pleasant portal is, to me, a grand gesture of generosity
When you’ve willed us so much woe
———
Ok so here’s what I did. I speak French decently, and at first glance it looked like Old/Middle French.
After eyeballing it a little, I needed to look up medieval script to see if I was reading the letters properly. As I was doing this I was cross-checking words in O/M French to see if things were lining up. For the most part it went well but I ran into a couple of real head-scratchers. First, dier. I thought this was probably related to French dire (to say/tell) but I wasn’t getting any hits. So then I thought, since I’d confirmed we’re in OF, could this be from eastern France / modern-day Belgium/Luxembourg/The Netherlands and be a dialect (like Walloon or Luxembourgish) that included some Germanic words? That led me to the Luxembourgish dier, meaning door, which made sense given the imagery. Then I ran into tresguint, which was extremely mysterious. It took me quite a while digging, and what I landed on is that it’s a combo of tres (very) and guint, a conjugation of the OF verb guignier (cognate with English wink), meaning to signal. So, that’s my best effort based on semi-educated guesses and instinct. If you’re still here, you get my final version of translation, the freest one. I guess it’s a poem.
✨
A glance, a wink, a glimmer
a place of warmth, a glow
beyond the gloom
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Aug 2, 2024
✒️
elegant & satisfying to write & at one point it was a letter in the English alphabet
Jan 29, 2024
🖋
like communicating with the ancients
a secret language hidden in plain sight
executing messages with patience
can give a sudden sense of strange delight
Mar 4, 2024
Top Recs from @radianthippo
📖
Such a cliche answer I know but it really helped me get my life together as a constantly disorganised person!
Feb 8, 2024
⚖️
Sandel’s ability to distill complex philosophical ideas into coherent, intuitive concepts is nothing short of a magic trick.
Feb 6, 2024
📰
They’re a genre of crosswords that have what are essentially riddles instead of regular clues!
For example: “chopped up melon fruit (5 letters)” would be the clue for “lemon” because a lemon is a “fruit” that consists of the letters in “melon” anagrammed (as indicated by the phrase “chopped up”)
It’s those lightbulb moments that make it so fun!
Feb 28, 2024