Widows and Orphans - Remembering The Terms

Remembering The Terms

A common mnemonic is "An orphan has no past; a widow has no future" or "An orphan is left behind, whereas a widow must go on alone".

Another way is to think of orphans as generally being younger than widows; thus, orphaned lines happen first, at the start of paragraphs (affecting and stranding the first line), and widowed lines happen last, at the end of paragraphs (affecting and stranding the last line). Orphaned lines appear at the "birth" (start) of paragraphs; widowed lines appear at the "death" (end) of paragraphs.

Read more about this topic:  Widows And Orphans

Famous quotes containing the words remembering the, remembering and/or terms:

    Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
    some northerly harbor of Labrador,
    before he became a schoolteacher
    a great-uncle painted a big picture.
    Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)

    And since the average lifetime—the relative longevity—is far greater for memories of poetic sensations than for those of heartbreaks, since the very long time that the grief I felt then because of Gilbert, it has been outlived by the pleasure I feel, whenever I wish to read, as in a sort of sundial, the minutes between twelve fifteen and one o’clock, in the month of May, upon remembering myself chatting ... with Madame Swann under the reflection of a cradle of wisteria.
    Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    The nineteenth century was completely lacking in logic, it had cosmic terms and hopes, and aspirations, and discoveries, and ideals but it had no logic.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)