On Reddit there was a subreddit where you couldn’t use the letter E, r/AVoid5 iirc
Oh I could, with simplicity.
你用英语因为你只懂英语。
我不肯用英语因为我不肯给你懂。
我们不同。
(Prompt didn’t specify which linguistic-type to use. P.S. used pinyin without the first letter of the 字母)
Might’ve been better paired with Adams. If I’m remembering correctly, when they were going to France, Adams tried to learn the language with rote memorization and conjugation tables and whatnot. Franklin apparently just made up “French-sounding” words.
Wasn’t there a novel written in the 1880s that did not include the letter E? The most commonly used letter in the English language. The story in the novel was unremarkable save for the fact that… yeah, there are no Es.
Restaurant Review… no wait
Eatery Evaluation…no…
Food Box, Go or No Go? By Homer… Bill Simpson.
That’s cool as a technical exercise.
And it was. It wasn’t noticed much when it first came out, but some decades later it blew up when people realised how cool it was.
the difference between Virginia and Philadelphia has never been so succinctly summarized
Mastodon instance where you can’t post the letter “e”: https://oulipo.social/public/local 🙃
A bit of a drag that a lot of local posts look so short and cut off—avoiding that fifth glyph isn’t particularly difficult. I was hoping individuals willing to sign up to this community would find joy in writing out paragraphs about various things.
I think, you usually post, if you got a thing to say. And thus you want to say that thing, not look for formulations all day long…
You might find it laborious at first, but as you post, it will turn natural. It’s not what I would ask of most, but to join a Mastodon location all about that act? It did disappoint a bit skimming local posts; it’s fun to do this activity!
Did you… Did you do the thing there? There’s no e
(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
They- Fuck! I already lost…
Yeah, I tried it in my other comment, and at first it started with “I think, folks…” which was already a dead end, because any continuation I tried would eventually need a “they”. Kind of wild that something as basic as plural can fuck you up. 😅
Bingo, saw an opportunity and had to jump on it.
In English, not using “e” seems like the true struggle.
(Sentence above free of "a"s).
Fuck you.
Ah, classic rebuttal and sans a certain character! Fantastic!
character
Almost!
There’s an entire novel that did it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_(novel)
Several. Later Georges Perec also did
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void
Which is a book about a world in which the letter “E” has disappeared and only one guy notices it. He tries to prove it, but of course all works of literature have been “rewritten” by reality to no longer include E. For example, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, is now A Blackbird - which the author includes in full, keeping the original meter and plot.
I heard about this when I was in my twenties, forgot the details, and purchased The Great Gatsby instead.
I thought I was missing something for the longest time. I guess I was.
Ahh that’s the one. For some reason I thought it was from the 1880s…
I just did it.
You thought you did somthing thr didnt you? Wll sorry to burst your bubbl but numrous sentnces could b constructd without mploying th first ltter of the Nglish lxicon.
sentnces
They snuck right past you
I left one in there as an exercise for the reader. I also didn’t change the letter position from first to fifth :D
It’s not too difficult to avoid using it.
Just reminded me of this.
In what sense is it the first letter of the English lexicon? Lexicon ≠ alphabet
If you list all English words in an order, a preferably standard/prototypical kind of order, what will be the first word on the list?
I’d say that if nothing else is specified, then the most correct choice of putting the words in an order is ti put them in alphabetical order.
If there is “the first one of all English words”, then it’s actually a bit difficult finding a definition for that where the first one would be something else than “a”.
In the sense that Alphabet has an ‘a’ in it.
Yeah, but it isn’t impressive avoiding a letter if you can use any word you want, and it doesnt matter what it means. “Without employing the second most frequent letter of English.” would make sense or “the vowel which is commonly listed first” or some sort of thing. I suspect they just didn’t know what lexicon meant and thought it sounded smart.
I think the description “first letter” is easily understood if you remember what a lexicon used to look like.
Ahh, I didn’t know that Americans* called dictionaries ‘lexicons’. In most forms of English I’ve heard, and in the field of linguistics, ‘lexicon’ is the complete set of vocabulary in a language, or subject. A dictionary is an alphabetical list of a lexicon, often with definitions.
*I’m presuming it’s Americans because mirriam webster lists the dictionary definition first, while OED and Cambridge only list that as archaic usage.
Well I’m neither English or American, but to me the word lexicon means encyclopedia. It’s still alphabetical.
It also means a person’s personal vocabulary… Aka a personal dictionary.
Plenty of archaic uses are still common depending on dialect. One of the more annoying aspects of Cambridge and OED is the assignment of archaic to older or lesser used forms that may still be common in parlance bet fell out of favor in most other ways.
Also I refuse to listen to what the English have to say on the English because they keep intentionally fucking with their dialect.
Quite right! Never trust the English! But what do you mean, they “keep intentionally fucking with their dialect”? All languages, dialects, sociolects, etc are constantly changing in different ways, do you feel like the dialects of England change more than other? Or that they do it more purposefully?
If memory serves they’ve had at least one government backed effort to relatinize certain words in their dialect. I do respect any country that does that on an intentional and purposeful level, it’s why I don’t respect the French and why I have gripes with the Icelandic.
“I win the bet”
Could still be shorter, “So?”
O!
Oi mum, where’s Grond?
Grond
Thomas Jefferson: Intelligence.
Benjamin Franklin: Genius.
deleted by creator
I’m going to assume you’re serious…
You’re describing the relationship between Nicola Tesla (inventor, genius) and Thomas Edison (business man, scumbag).
Benjamin Franklin (pictured right) is the guy who proved the existence of electricity. He is better known for
inventingusing the printing press and inventing bifocals.Apparently he invented time travel, too, if he was able to go back to 1440 to invent the printing press.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
You’re right, not the inventor. I had thought he reinvented it, making the first modern printing press, rather he built his own and was one of the first prolific users of one in America.
I’ve never seen a picture of Franklin when he was young. Maybe he was almost 400 years old when he died?
/s
The former; the person you’re thinking of, as the latter, is Thomas Edison.
Thanks!
