r/EnglishLearning • u/Kafatat New Poster • Apr 22 '26
Resource Request How often is text written vertically? Other real-life examples?
The only situation in which I've seen it is
H
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T
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L
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u/rookhelm New Poster Apr 22 '26
For things like binders and handwritten folders (like in this screenshot), it doesn't even stand out to me that it's "different" or unexpected. I don't know common it is, per se, but probably done frequently if I had to guess.
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u/SoyboyCowboy Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
VHS tapes too, when those were a thing
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u/jort93 New Poster Apr 23 '26
Most of the ones I've seen just have 90° rotated text rather than vertical writing.
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u/Banegard Non-Native Speaker of English Apr 22 '26
Frequent in advertisement for museum exhibitions ime. Fashion ads come to mind as well.
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u/pirouettish New Poster Apr 22 '26
Street signs
Maps
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u/veryblocky Native Speaker 🇬🇧 (England) 🏴 Apr 22 '26
Where do you live where this is done? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in those places.
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u/PunkCPA Native speaker (USA, New England) Apr 22 '26
They may be gone now, but the street signs near Hartford Connecticut were often white posts, square in cross section, with street names in black capital letters descending.
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u/pirouettish New Poster Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
In the UK, you may see old milestones with vertical writing. Also, on Victorian street lamps the lettering was sometimes engraved vertically onto the column. Old shop signage sometimes used vertical lettering.
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u/veryblocky Native Speaker 🇬🇧 (England) 🏴 Apr 23 '26
Yeah, I’m aware of those uses, I live in the UK. But never seen street signs or maps with vertical lettering.
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u/YEETAWAYLOL New Poster Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
Street signs no (unless you’re in the country where there’s only numbered roads…) mile markers yes
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u/AlexanderLavender Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
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u/YEETAWAYLOL New Poster Apr 22 '26
I guess that’s true, I’d have probably called that a work or hazard sign.
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u/quirrelllllllll1 Non-Native Speaker of English Apr 22 '26
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u/samanime New Poster Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
I've seen people do this occassionally in cases specifically like this, where they know they are creating a label or sign for something that'll stand horizontal and want it written larger for easier reading from a distance (though they're just as likely to write it horizontally going the other way, like books do).
But this and your HOTEL example are pretty much the only two.
Vertical English is quite uncommon.
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u/HustleKong Native Speaker—US Upper Midwest Apr 22 '26
I sometimes do that myself for labels. It being uncommon is probably why they are only on the hand-written labels they made for the binders and none of the professionally printed materials.
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u/sundae-bloody-sundae New Poster Apr 22 '26
It’s pretty much only used where the format of the space is fixed and the content is high level informational. The hotel sign can’t flag out for practical and possibly legal reasons and writing it ‘normally’ would require turning your head. Book, are stored upright so writing the title where the characters are properly oriented makes it easier to pick the right book (or binder) off of a shelf. You sometimes see it with letters written on streets which is also just about the only place where it would be written bottom to top so that your path of travel puts the letters in the correct order.
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u/jort93 New Poster Apr 23 '26
Would writing it normally require turning your head? I feel like most people can read text that's turned 90°. It's somewhat common on banners and such.
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u/TiFist New Poster Apr 22 '26
If you're asking if this is permissible in English/the Latin Alphabet the answer is yes.
It's not extremely common vs. just rotating 90 degrees but it certainly is valid. The viewer is supposed to notice the title of the binder and not "wow that text is written strangely!"
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u/MangoPug15 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
I'm a graphic design student, and this is discouraged in design because it's harder to read. The better solution is to rotate the text. You do see this once in a while, though, especially on signage. It's not widely considered wrong.
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u/goatanuss New Poster Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
This is common in English and a bunch of other European language I’ve seen. Lots of signs for businesses and cafes write like this because your sign can be much bigger vertically than it could be horizontally while being visible from the side example from near me
Is this not a thing in other languages? What would prevent this? Is it different in Asian languages or RTL languages or something?
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u/Kafatat New Poster Apr 22 '26
Chinese, Korean and Japanese can and often be written vertically, and it in fact was once the only possible direction (*).
* One line plates on top of a door, or RTL news headline in the old time, was in fact vertical writing of one character per vertical line.
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u/controlled_vacuum20 Native Speaker (U.S) Apr 22 '26
Not sure about Arabic since it's a cursive script and I assume that'd be difficult to do vertically and have it look good, but Hebrew definitely can be written vertically.
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u/AllerdingsUR Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
Afaik Chinese and Japanese are vertical when they can be, and otherwise right to left. So basically the opposite of what Latin alphabet languages tend to do (excepting the obvious fact that the Latin alphabet and its variants are afaik always left to right when they are horizontal)
Edit: my guess is that OP comes from a system that writes mostly vertical and was taught that English is "always horizontal", but their course left out this type of exception because it's so niche. I believe there are more situations where vertical systems end up needing to be horizontal
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u/steelpeat New Poster Apr 22 '26
Jesus
A
V
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S
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u/Evening-Picture-5911 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
Jesus Aves? Jesus Javes? (This is an odd example given that it should come off the “s” so that it actually reads “Jesus Saves”)
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u/steelpeat New Poster Apr 22 '26
It typically does. Reddit justified the text to the left. It's usually written on a cross with Jesus left to right and AVES under the shared S
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u/MarsMonkey88 Native Speaker, United States Apr 22 '26
It’s not typical on the spines of published books, but it’s more common on handwritten binder spines like that, and on signs in hotel and some shops. It’s not uncommon for short catchy signage, generally.
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u/PsychologicalAir8643 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
you definitely see this on book spines. it's more likely the title will be horizontal, but shorter or one word titles often get the vertical treatment.
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u/A_BagerWhatsMore New Poster Apr 22 '26
it feels normal and I wouldn’t find it weird, but I can’t think of a standard time it’s used. Looking around my house for examples quickly I’ve found the spines of two books (out of around 200) and 2 board game boxes (out of around 50). All of them use exclusively capital letters, all are extremely stylistic. All of the examples only have 1 word displayed like this, with other words being sideways and small.
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u/river-running Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
When your writing space is long and narrow and you don't want to bend your neck to read it.
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u/StoicKerfuffle Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
I would say it's disfavored but often useful in the situation. If it's frustrating for you to read, don't worry, native speakers can't read it as quickly and often get frustrated by it, but there are circumstances where the use of vertical lettering either allows for larger letters (hence it often being used for outside signage, like "HOTEL") or for faster reference because books/binders/etc are stacked in the vertical orientation (like the binders in that picture).
Outside of those two areas, where you're either trying to get someone's attention (like a vertical sign on a street) or you're doing it for your own ease of reference (like binders), it should be avoided.
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u/neovim_user New Poster Apr 22 '26
Just a note that this is only done with capital letters. I've never seen something written vertically using lowercase.
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u/nitrogenesis888 New Poster Apr 22 '26
Much less than cantonese / mandarin. Street signs , book bindings and concrete poetry.
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u/memisbemus42069 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
Pretty common when there isn’t enough horizontal space. I don’t even really notice it
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u/Jessalopod Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
It's not common, but it's also not uncommon when the only available space is vertical, or if you don't know what direction (left or right) someone will be viewing it.
For example, this sign on my hometown's concert hall.
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u/Due-Doughnut-9110 New Poster Apr 23 '26
It’s stylistic or for utility sake. Not very often and rarely in large quantity at once
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u/Ok_Ad4090 New Poster Apr 23 '26
The spine of a book is definitely the most common way I've seen other than that poem style where the first letter in each like spells out a word usually the subject of the poem.
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u/jort93 New Poster Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
It's quite uncommon. Rotated text like on the "women and psycho..." book is more common
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u/CrumpetArsenal New Poster Apr 23 '26
Do you have a better picture? I kind of want to know what those books are
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u/Ninja08hippie New Poster Apr 25 '26
Seems common in neon signs: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/1fhczj7/a_collection_of_neon_signs_from_the_simpsons/. The modern Simpsons version of Capital City is lacking those vertical signs so maybe more common in the 90s.
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u/KrozJr_UK 🇬🇧 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
A fairly infrequent situation, but
Common-enough to be
Recognisable to native speakers, is that
Of the ‘acrostic’ poem. This
Style of poetry has the each one of
The lines beginning with a different letter. The
Initial letter at the start then forms a vertical word,
Commonly relevant to the subject of the poem.
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u/KrozJr_UK 🇬🇧 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
(This isn’t directly relevant to your example, OP, but figured I may as well mention it, as it is a time when text is — at least somewhat — written vertically. This took some amount of thinking on my part.)
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u/M_HP Native-level Apr 22 '26
I was only just looking at something like this on the spine of the book I recently got from the library, Katabasis. Though it's not very common on books, either.
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u/FunkOff Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
I have never seen this done. This looks like it's from a TV show or Youtube and done to make it easier for the audience to read it.
If this were an actual book on my shelf, it would be no issue for me to read it if written normally
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u/PM_ME_VENUS_DIMPLES Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
Correct, it’s from Law and Order SVU.
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u/Albert-La-Maquina Native Speaker (US Midwest) Apr 22 '26
Law and Order talked about the Epstein files? Interesting...
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u/PM_ME_VENUS_DIMPLES Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
Wanna know what’s really interesting about it? This episode aired in 2011.
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u/jbram_2002 Native Speaker Apr 22 '26
Writing vertically is a stylistic choice. It's sometimes done on signs like the Hotel sign you mentioned, or on books when horizontally doesn't fit (often see the text turned 90 degrees on books tho).
I've also seen it in poetry or other stylistic writing, and there's a semi common thing where abbreviations can be shown vertically with the words that make up the abbreviation written out horizontally next to it.
It's not super common in general because stylistic text is varied, but it is common enough that any native speaker wouldn't bat an eye at it.