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.
Two types
Submitted 1 day ago by Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com to memes@sopuli.xyz
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/2e1987b5-de13-4ffc-be8a-2a03baac33c1.webp
Comments
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 1 day ago
buttnugget@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
That’s cool as a technical exercise.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 21 hours ago
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.
MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Restaurant Review… no wait
Eatery Evaluation…no…
Food Box, Go or No Go? By Homer… Bill Simpson.
ByteJunk@lemmy.world 1 day ago
For English, not using “e” seems like the real challenge.
Klear@quokk.au 1 day ago
Fuck you.
Mac@mander.xyz 22 hours ago
Ah, classic rebuttal and sans a certain character! Fantastic!
otacon239@lemmy.world 1 day ago
There’s an entire novel that did it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_(novel)
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Several. Later Georges Perec also did
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.
toynbee@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 1 day ago
Ahh that’s the one. For some reason I thought it was from the 1880s…
EtherWhack@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I just did it.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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.
Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 1 day ago
sentnces
They snuck right past you
oxysis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
It’s not too difficult to avoid using it.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
konalt@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
On Reddit there was a subreddit where you couldn’t use the letter E, r/AVoid5 iirc
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
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)
Acamon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
In what sense is it the first letter of the English lexicon? Lexicon ≠ alphabet
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
In the sense that Alphabet has an ‘a’ in it.
Acamon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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.
Tuuktuuk@piefed.ee 11 hours ago
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”.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Could still be shorter, “Nope.”
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Thomas Jefferson: Intelligence.
Benjamin Franklin: Genius.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
[deleted]aeronmelon@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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 inventing the printing press and bifocals.
tomenzgg@midwest.social 1 day ago
The former; the person you’re thinking of, as the latter, is Thomas Edison.
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 1 day ago
“I win the bet”
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 21 hours ago
the difference between Virginia and Philadelphia has never been so succinctly summarized
MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
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.
Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Mastodon instance where you can’t post the letter “e”: oulipo.social/public/local 🙃
Foxfire@pawb.social 1 day ago
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.
Thassodar@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Did you… Did you do the thing there? There’s no e
(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
Ephera@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
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…