Man plans Yiddish poster; God laughs at formatting

August 17, 2018 8:09 PM

I've been tasked with making a poster with the phrase "דער מענטש טראַכט און גאָט לאַכט" on it. It would hopefully be about three equal sized lines of text, but I have no idea at all where to put line breaks. Could some Yiddish and/or Hebrew speakers help me out?
posted by Tell Me No Lies to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Best answer: I'd probably do:

דער מענטש טראַכט
און
גאָט לאַכט

And add some graphical element around the short middle line (the man plans - and - God laughs). But those are obviously unequal, and it wouldn't be the end of the word to have it

דער מענטש
טראַכט און
גאָט לאַכט

Which is (the man - plans and - God laughs). As long as it's one clear block of text meant to be read together I think that's fine. Or two lines with three words each (The man plans - and God laughs) would also be good.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:29 PM on August 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

Not a speaker but picking through various transliteration/translations it seems like breaks are not as important as in english. So basically what looks good visually will work fine for native speakers.
posted by sammyo at 6:41 AM on August 18, 2018