What are they?

My google-fu is not working right because I cant find a straight answer.


{grumble}Stupid title typo{/grumble}

you may have more luck searching for widows and orphans. ;)
but here, let me help you out. wikipedia gives this explanation :

In typesetting, widows and orphans are words or short lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph, which are left dangling at the top or bottom of a column, separated from the rest of the paragraph. There is some disagreement about the definitions of widow and orphan; what one source calls a widow the other calls an orphan[1][2]. The Chicago Manual of Style uses these definitions[2]:

Widow

A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page/column, thus separated from the remainder of the text.


Orphan

A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page/column.
A word, part of a word, or very short line that appears by itself at the end of a paragraph. Orphans result in too much white space between paragraphs or at the bottom of a page.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans

Basically a Widow, in typography, is when the last line of a paragraph appears at the top of the following page and an Orphan is the first/opening line of a paragraph appears at the bottom of a page and the rest of the text appears on the next page.


See also...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widows_and_orphans




EDIT: Oops, looks like Zelda beat me to it.

EDIT: Oops, looks like Zelda beat me to it.

well, now he's got confirmation and he can be sure i'm not just making crap up. ;)

Thanks Zelda and AnemicOak

well, now he's got confirmation and he can be sure i'm not just making crap up. ;)

Well you might have created that Wikipedia entry just to confuse me :p

Well you might have created that Wikipedia entry just to confuse me :p

:sneaky:

(spoken like a true evil genius plotting to take over the universe. ;))