boustrophedon
noun

- the writing of alternate lines in opposite directions (as from left to right and from right to left)

- written from right to left and from left to right in alternate lines

- an ancient method of writing in which the lines run alternately from right to left and from left to right

Merriam-Webster, Oxford Languages, Dictionary(dot)com

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WORD ORIGIN

The etymology of “boustrophedon“ is very interesting. It comes from Ancient “turning like an ox“ or “ox-turning”.

The word is composed of three parts: βοῦς (boûs) meaning “ox“, στροφή (strophḗ) meaning “turning”, and -ηδόν (-ēdón), an adverbial suffix. Thus “a style of writing where lines alternate between left-to-right and right-to-left directions”.

“Boustrophedon” entered the English language around 1783, first appearing in the writing of Hugh Blair, a Church of Scotland minister and literary critic.

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WEIRD WALKING

58 year-old American, Ashrita Furman, is a prolific record breaker, holds over 200 locomotion records, including:

- Longest continuous distance somersaulting: 12 miles 390 yards in April 1986

- Longest distance walking with a milk bottle balanced on the head: 80.95 miles in April 1998

- Fastest marathon skipping: 26.2 miles 5 hours 55 min 13 sec in August 2003

- Fastest 8 kilometers (4.97 miles) stilt walking: 39 min 56 sec in December 2004

- Longest backwards walk: 80 miles in 3 days from July 17-19, 2007

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- Longest continuous walk pushing a wheelbarrow: 1,731 miles by Charlie Franks from Great Britain in 1981

- Farthest distance walking with a bottle balanced on the head: 100.18 miles by John Evans from Great Britain in 1998

- Fastest 100m backwards: Roland Wegner from Germany in 13.6 seconds on July 4, 2007

- Fastest backwards mile: Aaron Yoder from the USA in 5 minutes and 54.25 seconds on November 23, 2015

- Longest journey on stilts: Saimaiti Yiming 1,093 miles across China in 2015

- Fastest 100m sprint in high heels: 14.531 seconds by André Ortolf from Germany in 2017

- Fastest mile while juggling (joggling): 4 minutes 43.2 seconds by Zach Prescott from the USA in 2018

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SYNONYMS

for “reverse direction”:

About-face, back away, back off, backpedal, backtrack, beat a hasty retreat, boomerang, BOUSTROPHEDON, change course (direction), change tack, come full circle, counter-march, do a 180, do an about-turn, double back, draw back, flip-flop, go back to square one, hang a U-turn, head back, hit reverse, make a U-turn, perform an about-face, pivot, pull a one-eighty, pull back, put in reverse, retrace one’s steps, reverse course (direction, gear, trajectory), row backwards, run in reverse, shift into reverse, step back, swing around, take a detour, take two steps back, throw it in reverse, turn about (around, back), turn on one's heel, turn tail, veer off, walk back, withdraw

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a sentence, say something like:

“The economy has felt BOUSTROPHEDON this past year, with progress and recession intertwined.”

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HAVE A LAUGH and connect today’s OWAD with yesterday’s in a witty way… say something like:

“The politician’s STENTORIAN speech took so many BOUSTROPHEDON turns that by the end, he had argued passionately for and against his own position.”

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THANKS to Florian for suggesting today's word!

Click here to see example text

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