The mirror had just been discovered. What started as an accidental spilling of white silvery paint on a flat piece of glass ended with a huge demand for mirrors from one and all.



The mirror was a precious and coveted thing. A mirror was regarded not only as an item of utility and convenience but also as a symbol of style and status. The mirror, they believed, always spoke the truth. Neither in colour nor in shape nor in distance would the mirror ever distort anything by even an iota. The mirror always faithfully produced a true and exact image of the object placed in front of it.



Once during a trial the judge asked, "Did you see the man enter your house or take your gold?"

"Yes, I did," claimed the litigant.

"But he coudn't have," objected the defence lawyer. "He was facing the other side, away from the door."

"Ah, but I had a mirror before me," chirped in the man. "I was shaving before the mirror and I could see what was going on behind me."


The judge forthwith over-ruled all objections and said: "The mirror can never tell a lie. Seeing a thing in the mirror is as good as seeing the thing direct."

Such was esteem in which people regarded the mirror.


The twins are exactly alike, some one would say.

Yes, one is the mirror image of the other! would be the reply.

MIRROR IMAGE was the new idiom to describe any two things being identical or exactly alike.



One day a man was sitting and shaving in front of a mirror. He was dictating numbers to his son. "Write eighteen," he said.

As the boy was writing, he shouted: "Why are you writing with the left hand? Tricks every time!"



The son wrote and held up the paper behind his father sitting before the mirror.

"That's wrong!" said the man, looking into the mirror. "Be serious. Write with your right hand. Write eighteen."



"But I've written eighteen. And I'm writing with my right hand," replied the son.

"Now don't lie. I can see through the mirror. You've written eighty one, not eighteen," said the father angrily.

"I've written ONE EIGHT," said the confused child.



"You've written EIGHT ONE," said his father wearily, continuing to shave before the mirror.

The little boy affirmed that e had written ONE EIGHT and not EIGHT ONE. The father, impatient at his impudence, turned from the mirror to slap the child, when he abruptly froze in surprise. The boy had written eighteen. And yet when he turned again and looked into the mirror, he saw eighty one.



"How is it possible?" he wondered. "A mirror can't lie"

He called his wife who too was astonished at this apparently incredible mistery. Then she had an idea. She drew seven boxes, painted them with the colours of the rainbow, and put the paper in front of the mirror. She asked him to look into the mirror and mname the colours. He listed them in just the reverse order.



It was only then that people discovered a new fact about mirror - here the left side went to the right, and the right side to the left. Numbers like 108 became 801, and words like MAT became TAM.

They called it 'sides interchange'. Later it was called lateral inversion.