Hacker News Reader

Comment by wombatpm | Hacker News Reader

Widows are when the final line of a paragraph starts the next page. Orphans are when the first line of a paragraph ends a page.

View on HN

In german typography the name for widow is "Hurenkind" wich translates to "child of a whore". I was pretty surprised to hear that word on a regular basis while working in text for print. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurenkind_und_Schusterjunge

Funny because "fixing an orphan" is hard in real life (assuming they've lost both their parents, you have to find them a foster home) but easy in typesetting (just add an empty line before), whereas "fixing a widow" is easy in real life (just remarry) but hard in typesetting.

How is finding one person suitable to be a parent (to make them a foster parent) differently hard, than finding another person suitable to be a parent (to marry them)?

Fewer people want to foster than to have their own kids?

For a foster parent you only need to find someone willing to adopt a child, which already register themself into a list. For marriage you need to find someone willing to marry and to marry you out of random people.

Also, marriage doesn’t imply children.

Depends, but I see what you mean.

Never "depends". Marriage doesn't guarantee children, nor even the desire to try for them, both of which can occur without marriage.

Sorta.

Neither the human orphan nor the widow is fixed by your description; they simply aren't alone either more.

The child is still an orphan; the woman a widow.

The explanation for the German words (widow = Schusterjunge, which means cobbler‘s boy, orphan = hurenkind, as mentioned in another comment) is also applicable for the English ones: An orphan doesn’t know where it comes from, a widow doesn’t know where she will go.

You will have to explain what a page is to the younger readers.

Surely they know the concept of a book

Are you sure about that?

It’s like when you click on a new link. That’s a page.

click?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com