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While waiting for the remaining Bulatlat articles to come in, I decided to surf the Net and came across this “unusual” paragraph. Even if the answer is immediately below, try to know for yourself what’s so “unusual” about it.
I actually was not able to guess it, as I was preoccupied with the way the paragraph’s sentences were written: I had observed that all but two sentences end with the word “it.” As it turns out, that’s not the only unusual characteristic of this paragraph.
Read it now and analyze. Clue: Study the form, not the substance.
This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious though just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it. It’s just unusual though. Study this paragraph, its grammar, punctuation, capitalization, composition, or anything and think about it. You still may not find anything odd about it, but if you cautiously look at it and work at it, you just might find out what is actually so unusual or untypical about it.
Do you already know the paragraph’s “unusual” characteristic? The answer may be found after the jump.
The answer is not that obvious: The paragraph does not have the letter “e.” Find that hard to believe? Read it again!
The “unusual” paragraph is an example of a lipogram, or a word game consisting of writing text in which a particular letter or group of letters is missing (i.e., intentionally not included). In English writing, the missing letter is usually a vowel, the most common being the letter “e.”
Related Posts:What’s wrong with this picture?
Quoted in MoneySense (May-June 2007)
Pamamahayag, ekonomiya at wika
Direksiyon patungong kalayaan
Matematika para sa manggagawa
2 responses to “What’s so unusual about this paragraph?”
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ah okay. so totoo lang wala akong na-notice na kakaiba :)
ngapala sir, pa-update po ng link. :)
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