| Title: | The Joy of Lex |
| Notice: | A Notes File even your grammar could love |
| Moderator: | THEBAY::SYSTEM |
| Created: | Fri Feb 28 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Mon Jun 02 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1192 |
| Total number of notes: | 42769 |
Note entry #471 brought to memory the following college "bizarrity":
"Every lexical structure reduces to the number 4."
The sentence: "There are books." consumes 16 bytes; thus "16";
The word "sixteen" consumes 7 bytes; thus "7";
"Seven" = 5;
"Five" is 4,
...and four is four. Bizarre indeed.
Ed
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 473.1 | The Answer to the Great Question | DECSIM::HEILMAN | Get 'em out by Friday | Thu Jan 28 1988 03:47 | 3 |
> "Every lexical structure reduces to the number 4."
Not Forty-two?
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| 473.2 | HBO::KELLIHER | Ed Kelliher | Thu Jan 28 1988 14:48 | 6 | |
r�: -1 Even if whatever "forty-two" refers to is correct,
"forty-two" then reduces to 9, "nine" reduces to 4, and "four"
is 4. Everything ultimately reduces to 4.
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| 473.3 | "SIX" is 3 | MERIDN::THOMPSON | Tue Apr 25 1989 21:43 | 1 | |
| 473.4 | ... continue to the end. THEN stop. | EAGLE1::EGGERS | Soaring to new heights | Thu Apr 27 1989 07:08 | 7 |
Yes, "six" is 3, but
"three" is 5, and
"five" is 4.
Everything reduces to 4.
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| 473.5 | DDIF::CANTOR | This is not all rock and roll, dude. | Sat Apr 29 1989 00:58 | 30 | |
Re .four Well, let's see. "Everything" is 10, and "ten" is 3, and, as you said, "three" is 5, which gives us "five" is 4. Then, again, "*" is a synonym for "everything", and "*" is one, but "one" is 3, and the result of getting 3 is by now well-known to be 4. Not only that, but "zero" is 4, directly, and so it's also true that nothing reduces to 4. In fact, anything you start with reduces to 4, too. Or is that 4, two? Or is it 4-2, or 42, which, as we all know, is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Dave C. (My nicknumber in college was "4".) | |||||
| 473.6 | paradoxically | IOSG::LAWM | Mathew Law (only *one* T), Reading UK | Wed May 03 1989 13:12 | 7 |
Hmm... Everything reduces to four, but nothing reduces to four. Looks
like another problem for Captain Kirk to feed to the nearest malevolent
computer in order to blow it up!
Mat.
*:o)
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