Category talk:Ambigrams by type
[edit]
In his book Ambigrammi, Douglas Hofstadter coined the words "homograms" and "heterograms" for ambigrams that stay the same and ambigrams that change, respectively.[1][2]
In December 2022, Hofstadter confirms he has never heard "symbiotogram" and clearly rejects this term.
The prefix symbioto- does not exist in English. -Biosis means (in biology) a specified way of living.
The categories Symbiotogram and Symbiotogram ambigram were deleted last year, along with the related talk page explaining the reason. It is probably better not to use them.
Homograms and heterograms are not limited to 180° rotational ambigrams. The concept also works with mirror ambigrams, and other types. Nevertheless, there are several cases where the classification will be impossible, in particular when the words overlap, like for example AutOtua, UpsideDown, or AlienSnake, or when the composition is a mix of homograms / heterograms, like Never live as Evil, Va au diable or Eye for blind child. And what about the logos made of isolated letters, mixed with numbers, or punctuation marks? Similarly, if a famous sentence remains the same upside down, like Georges Perec's, is the ambigram "homogram" or "heterogram"? Homogram sentence, but heterogram words.
I'm not sure the categories "Homograms" and "Heterograms" should be created on Commons, but if they are by someone, then it will be important to give written instructions upstream before the pages become a mess.
I think a new category called "One-word ambigrams" would be possible and easier, because it could host invariant ambigrams of all types, like Escher, Wikipedia or Maoam, without confusion. -- Basile Morin (talk) 05:07, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
References[edit]
- ↑ Douglas Hofstadter (1987) Ambigrammi. Un microcosmo ideale per lo studio della creatività, Hopefulmonster. Archived from the original. ISBN: 978-8877570062.
- ↑ de Gruyter, Walter (2004) (in English) Semiotik Semiotics, Herbert Ernst Wiegand, p. 3,588 ISBN: 978-3110179620.