In typography, you want to avoid single words as the last line of a paragraph and single lines of text at the beginning or end of a column or page. Why? A lonely single word at the end of a paragraph creates a visual interruption in the flow that breaks the reader’s focus. This is called a "runt". This break is caused by the unintended white space that calls more attention than necessary to the single word. Similarly, a line or word of text that jumps to the next page/column or starts a page/column should be avoided for the same reason. This would be called an "orphan" or "widow".
As graphic designers, we adjust the space between words and/or letters to resolve these typographic problems as the final step in the design process. This is important no matter if the project is a website design, research report, brochure design, invitation, PowerPoint presentation, or any other design that includes text.
You can call them what you want, maybe widphans or ordows? They are a problem and need to be fixed!
So now to the definition and naming of these little nitpicks. There seem to be different opinions on what is called an orphan and a widow. The Chicago Manual of Style and Robert Bringhurst in the Elements of Typographic Style agree:
- Widow: A paragraph-ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. (They have a past but no future.)
- Orphan: A paragraph-opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page or column, thus separated from the rest of the text. (They have no past but a future.)
- Runt: A single, short word at the end of a paragraph.
