Square Theory

Text-as-images and tooling

• Several people dislike screenshots of text because they block copy/paste; others note modern devices (iPhone, some browsers, OCR utilities) can now extract text from images.
• One commenter points out the text of the image is in the alt attribute, but browsers don’t expose it well.
• Various OCR/text-recognition tools and browser features are mentioned; compatibility with extensions like NoScript/AdBlock is unclear.

Idioms, prepositions, and synonym/antonym “squares”

• Commenters add examples of “square-like” relations built from prepositions: “down for / down with / down on,” and the near-equivalence of “down for” and “up for.”
• Another favorite: “outgoing” vs. “retiring” as both antonyms (social) and synonyms (leaving a job).

Math, logic, and semiotics connections

• Multiple people see immediate parallels to category theory: commutative diagrams, double categories, homomorphisms, and “non-commuting” phrases.
• Others connect it to Greimas’ semiotic square, knowledge graphs, and SAT-style analogy problems.
• Some think the “party / donkey / elephant” example really hinges on “party animal,” suggesting the representation may be slightly off.

Crosswords, word games, and new designs

• The crossword “click” feeling strongly resonates; one person plugs a game (Spaceword) about tightly packing letters into a square and discusses the rarity of perfectly filled grids.
• There’s interest in non-daily or “practice” modes, variant scoring (e.g., “golf”), and other square-based games.
• Many driving or party word games are described: rhyming clue pairs (“hink pink / stinky pinky / awful waffle”), “match three” connector-word puzzles, synonym-based rephrasings of video game titles, and commercial games like Codenames and Decrypto.

Puns, ambiguity, and garden paths

• Numerous classic jokes are reinterpreted as squares: the scarecrow “out standing in his field,” “waiting to be seen,” “time flies / fruit flies,” chicken “other side,” corduroy pillow “head lines,” etc.
• Discussion digs into grammatical ambiguity (“fruit flies like a banana” as a canonical example), garden-path sentences, and how compounding and prosody differ between written and spoken language.
• Non-native-speaker slips (“hand job” for “manual labor,” “rim job” in sports) are framed as accidental but perfect squares.

Cognitive pleasure and criticism

• Some liken the satisfaction of a good square to group theory, music, or the general “orgasm of explanation.”
• Others propose higher-dimensional versions (cubes, more complex graphs) and literary structures with many interlocking connections.
• A few find the framing somewhat overblown but still appreciate it as a fun, productive lens: “you’ve got to have an angle, and this is the right angle.”