But a V-shaped pattern by one of the doors suggested that the fire had originated elsewhere.

NEWYORKER: Trial by Fire

Bear markets have been typically followed by bull markets in a V-shaped pattern.

FORBES: Anticipate the V

There was also a V-shaped pattern by the living-room doorway, far from where the fire had started on the couch.

NEWYORKER: Trial by Fire

Shoemaker Steven Madden, with the whimsically descriptive ticker SHOO, appears to be crafting the right side of a cup-shaped pattern it began in May.

FORBES: Top-Rated IBD Stocks Retaking 10-Week Averages In Healthy Consolidation

But now that second-stage lines to the north have been proposed, the 'Y-shaped' pattern spells double-trouble for Staffordshire's politicians.

BBC: HS2 spells double trouble in next week's council poll

For her experiment she studied the inheritance of three traits: a maroon coloured leaf marking, a white V-shaped leaf mark pattern, and the production of hydrogen cyanide in damaged leaves, which is thought to be a defence against predators.

UNESCO: Outstanding Student Award - Realise the Dream

To convince customers they were getting a better rock at a higher price, he developed a handheld, cylindrically shaped magnifying glass that clarifies the pattern of hearts and arrows.

FORBES: Stones on fire

Then he discovered a new Japanese method of cutting diamonds: When viewed under a low-magnification (3x) lens, the stone refracted light in such a way as to give off a pattern of eight heart-shaped sparkles at the bottom of the diamond and eight arrow-shaped fire-bursts through the top--hence the name "hearts-and-arrows" diamonds.

FORBES: Stones on fire

If the pattern of public opinion in general is bell-shaped, that of religious belief has the profile of a Volkswagen Beetle: a bump of evangelical Protestants at the front, a bigger bulge of uncensorious congregations in the middle and a stubby secular tail.

ECONOMIST: Therapy of the masses