CubitusAug 7, 2023
John Overholt
Optometrist George Mayerle’s 1907 multicultural eye chart is a fabulous piece of graphic design in its own right. https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2023/08/03/mayerles-lithographed-international-test-chart-1907/
Mayerle’s Lithographed International Test Chart, 1907

By Stephen P. Rice ~ Originally published in Hidden Treasure: The National Library of Medicine, 2011. This multilingual eye-test chart, published in 1907, was the creation of the optometrist George…

Circulating Now from the NLM Historical Collections
Aug 6, 2023 at 1:45pmWeb
Show thread(((Cindy Weinstein)))Aug 6, 2023
@overholt. It's downright #Surrealistic!
Show threadEvan JensenAug 6, 2023
@overholt damn that’s excellent!
Show threadvarx/socialAug 6, 2023
@overholt I'm fascinated by the presence of numeric digits in the symbols column. I guess even the illiterate are likely to know numbers!
Show threadHyphinettAug 6, 2023
@overholt wouldn't you say the inclusion of an American flag and only an American flag shows a bias towards a certain culture? Not that it's not cool and well designed either, or that it can't be multicultural and still show bias.
Show threadwb x64Aug 6, 2023
@BreoganHackett @overholt it's definitely not perfect (some of the symbols are ambiguous, like sideways vs upright star, or pear vs avocado(?), and the rows are similar size but not similar complexity so the results won't be consistent between languages) but as a rough tool that doesn't depend on knowing English letters it's great
Show threadHyphinettAug 6, 2023
@wilbr @overholt again I wasn't critiquing it's validity as a test just trying to raise the point that what one person might call multicultural is still impacted by where they come from in the world.
Show threadPotato Enthusiast 🇵🇸Aug 6, 2023
@BreoganHackett @wilbr @overholt it's pretty i guess. But not functional (ambiguity) and not inclusive (American flag in the middle, danger)
Show threadwhetstoneAug 7, 2023
@BreoganHackett @overholt it definitely indicates it was made by an american but my guess is that the “correct” answer for that line is just “a flag” rather than identifying the specific nation. distinguishing between nations would have to be at a much higher level of difficulty and would, ironically, be far *more* culturally biased.
Show threaddr2chaseAug 8, 2023
@whetstone @BreoganHackett @overholt 🇨🇱
Show threadSimon CampbellAug 6, 2023
@overholt Wonderful!!!
Show threadDagnabbit, Pascaline! 💥Aug 6, 2023
@overholt Wow, this is such a great chart! I love it, thanks for posting ❤
Show threadmrchanAug 6, 2023
@overholt Presumably because there is no simple alphabet list for Chinese, the characters used seem to be phrases, possibly taken from a newspaper or signage. For example, the second row 萬國寶通銀行 (then written right to left) is International Banking Corporation (now Citibank)
Show threadMatei Matthias Covrigus 🥨Aug 6, 2023
@mrchan @overholt
Also date
<missing number >年
十月
廿八日
Show threadVirginicusAug 6, 2023
@overholt First time I’ve seen an eye chart with an actual eye.
Show threadOliverUvAug 6, 2023
@overholt first column for English, second column for German
Show threadUrsidinoj/The BjornsdottirsAug 6, 2023
@overholt Latin is represented twice - once for English/French, and once for what I'd probably call German (Fraktur).
Show threadYoav Lavi | 𐤉𐤅𐤀𐤁𐤟𐤋𐤁𐤉𐤀Aug 6, 2023
@overholt That Hebrew / Yiddish one spells "Pain" (כאב) (in Hebrew) on the fourth row from the bottom
Show threadverity, in a pantry near youAug 6, 2023
@overholt there's so much in this chart! (why the distinction between the blackletter and typewriter font columns? also why are the chinese characters written in three different fonts?!)
Show threadIdle LiftingAug 6, 2023
@overholt Putting ו and ז right next to each other like that is the real test lol
Show threadMatei Matthias Covrigus 🥨Aug 6, 2023
@overholt
I actually can real all of them  
With some difficulty on the second row. Is that what they call “Gothic alphabet“?
Show threadzodarrAug 6, 2023
@overholt This is most interesting. Didn't thought of this kind of sheet till now.
Show thread🌟ジギーくんAug 6, 2023
@overholt Chinese speakers taking the Japanese eyesight test be like: proletariat
Show threadTeddiAug 7, 2023
@overholt is the last one Yiddish or Hebrew?
Show threadEver AftarAug 7, 2023
@overholt love the american flag in the illiterate column, LOL
Show threadOblomovAug 7, 2023
@overholt we have a framed print of this. It's beautiful, but so heavy we haven't had the opportunity to hang it on a wall (simple nails won't do hold up).
Show threadAzalaisAug 7, 2023
@overholt We have a beautifull print of It, a gift by the italian pubilsher Adelphi for booksellers
Show threadwhetstoneAug 7, 2023
@overholt This is rad and makes me want to live in turn-of-the-last-century San Francisco. It's also a cool snapshot of the specific immigrant populations there at that time... other melting-pot cities would have needed a different selection of languages.
Show threadSchlockluster VideoAug 9, 2023
@overholt I would swear this was the work of a Dadaist without the context! Thanks for sharing!
Show threadAustin GovellaAug 12, 2023

@overholt I LOVE THIS.

Pretty sure this is the second time I've boosted it. May it float around Mastodon forever.

Show threadBenj AzoseAug 13, 2023
@overholt A fun detail, the three letter line in the Hebrew letters says כאב which means pain, which might be why you're at that doctor.
Show threadRiley S. FaelanAug 21, 2023
@overholt ​