“Triptych” is patterned off the earlier word “diptych,” from the Greek “diptukha,” which was a pair of writing tablets. The fictional author Lemony Snicket describes a triptych perfectly: “If you have walked into a museum recently — whether you did so to attend an art exhibition or to escape from the police — you may have noticed a type of painting known as a triptych. A triptych has three panels, with something different painted on each of the panels. For instance, my friend Professor Reed made a triptych for me, and he painted fire on one panel, a typewriter on another, and the face of a beautiful, intelligent woman on the third. The triptych is entitled ‘What Happened to Beatrice’ and I cannot look upon it without weeping.”