Party aftermath

[devi]

We woke up to find that each room of the house had sprouted its own origami dinosaur. It felt a bit like that scene in Blade Runner.

Thank you all for coming, especially those of you I hadn't met before - there may be another post soon featuring That Word Jo Hates So Much! But would the secret dinosaur-folder please stand up so I can thank you properly?

Comments

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I'm going to remove all the relevant keys from your keyboard so you can't type that word.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Noooo! You can have the F, and maybe the L, but please, please don't take the E!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

(I am not Georges Perec, nor do I wish to be)

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Please don't be. I tried to read one of his books once but just lifting it was tiring.

[dermfitz.livejournal.com]

Is the word "flange"?

[mooism.livejournal.com]

We thus conclude that E’s have negative mass.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

If that is true, how come the word "phlogiston" has no e's, eh?

[mooism.livejournal.com]

There are various theories.

1. In fact all vowels have negative mass, and O’s have a particularly large negative mass. Additionally the effect of sandwiching the I between the G and S like that is to make that I’s mass more negative than usual, while diminishing the positive masses of the G and S. Finally, letters such as P, H and L do not have much mass anyway (note the absence of weighty letters like X, B and F) so the negative masses win, even though there are no E’s involved.
2. “Phlogiston” does contain an E, but it cannot be detected. We note that in certain words — “note” itself is one — the E does not appear where we would expect, but has slid past an intervening consonant. The hypothesis is that E’s at the ends of words can slide off them altogether, evading detection.
3. Because the word “phlogiston” is not itself phlogiston.

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

He's got some great short stories (and some rather dull ones). I would avoid A Void though, cos it's rather boring actually.

[maccy.livejournal.com]

If you were then you'd have a pretty good shot in the Hair Wars™: