Something that's always bothered me

By Adam on November 27, 2008 4:10 PM | 2 Comments | No TrackBacks

I wish the words NORTH, SOUTH; EAST, WEST weren’t so damn similar in shape. The antonyms are the same length, and have so many letters in common.

[adam@adam-hahns-macbook:~]$ grep -c "^.o.th$" /usr/share/dict/words
19
[adam@adam-hahns-macbook:~]$ grep -c "^..st$" /usr/share/dict/words
58

Not too many words fit the description, and those that do are opposites. I know this is probably due to etymology, but I just wish they weren’t words I didn’t have to pick out from a distance.

</rant>

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2 Comments

Ben Newman | November 30, 2008 4:40 PM
Another odd coincidence is that there are nine letters in each pair of words for opposite sides of a box: 
    FRONT BACK
    LEFT RIGHT
    TOP BOTTOM
Might want to play with line-height for the <pre> tag?
Author Profile Page Adam replied to comment from Ben Newman | November 30, 2008 6:23 PM
Ah, fixed. MT was inserting <br/> all over.