Cross Writing

Back when postage/paper was expensive, some took to the practice of "cross writing" - when they reached the end of the page, they simply turned the paper sideways and continued to write

My example of 1848 is unfortunately cut at both sides so it is not possible to read the letter, but is still a good illustration of cross writing.

These criss cross letters are good I have come across many, you get two letters in one, they are fun t transcribe to.

Lovely piece!

It occurs to me that Etsy - the site that lets us sell things that no longer need making - provides us with an opportunity to sell software applets to do things that no longer need doing.

One would be cross-writing. You can do this manually (so to speak) right now - print half of your text portrait, feed that sheet back into the printer, and print the second half of your text landscape - but an applet that automated the process - dividing the text, scaling the font to fill the page, etc - might be the sort of thing that would appeal to the Etsy crowd.

As would automated mirror-writing, which would come with a smartphone app to 're-reverse' the text so you could read it easily with your phone.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey