Martin and I grabbed a warm-ish winter day and set out on our neighborhood walk.  I’m always on the lookout for something new and potentially interesting to show Olivia and Leah when they visit.  We rounded a corner onto a snow-free sidewalk.  Whoo-hoo. No rectangular sections on this sidewalk.  NO!  There were pentagons. A few iscoceles triangles. And a few shapes that were polygons, irregularly sided but polygons  just the same.  I could challenge. Olivia to find them and introduce Leah to shape names beyond the ones she knows.

Martin and I started riffing on polygons of various numbers when came up with a uragon, the phrase he told me is used to break up. Thankfully this was all in the abstract which, in  art, may or may not include polygons.

And now a question for the linguistically, mathematically, and geometrically inclined. A triangle is a polygon but its name derives from the number of its interior angles (derivative, Latin). A triangle is never referred to as a trigon. A square is not a quadragon (exterior) but a quadrangle (interior). Pentagon and pentangle? (Outside and governmental vs. inside and witchy-mental.) Octagon and octangle.  We no longer say octangle, but octagon. Greek pretty much won out linguistically  When you invent or discover it you get to name it. Imagine all those Pythagoreans conversing in the town agora (square is so Latin.)

From sidewalks to math to linguistics to breakups.

Until next time,

Imagon

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