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Carpal Tunnel
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int main(void). Hmmm. C programmer?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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The word does not contain all twenty-six letters; the thing to which the word refers does.
What is a word, if not synonymous with that to which it refers?
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"What is a word," you ask, "if not synonymous with that to which it refers?"
Lewis Carroll answered this thus in "Through the Looking Glass":
-----"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you. The name of the song is called 'HADDOCKS' EYES.'"
-----"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
-----"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is CALLED. The name really IS 'THE AGED AGED MAN.'"
-----"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the SONG is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
-----"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The SONG is called 'WAYS AND MEANS': but that's only what it's CALLED, you know!"
-----"Well, what IS the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
-----"I was coming to that," the Knight said. `The song really IS 'A-SITTING ON A GATE': and the tune's my own invention."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Lewis Carroll answered this thus in "Through the Looking Glass":Thanks, PhonicAnts! That really clears everything up for us!  --Tweedledum & Tweedledee The Only WO'N!
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LMAO, whitman! I said that was how Lewis Carroll answered it; I never said he answered it clearly! (smile)
Maybe slithy would have a carrollean comment to add?
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Carpal Tunnel
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I, for one, don't care if ARs is the Devil incarnate, I agree with him here. The explanation *is perfectly clear. That the word alphabet is not the same thing as the alphabet is self evident. The one has eight letters and only seven of them different; the latter has twenty-six (in English), all different.
QED
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"incarnate", says faldage
Never realized this, but that word seems to combine the root meaning "red" with the concept of "incarnation" (which could be applied to things other than the red devil). Any connection?
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There is a sentence, semantically nonsensical but syntactically valid, making use of every letter. It's shorter in length than the ubiquitous "the quick brown fox...", but I can't recall what form it takes.
You should also check out Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn, a "progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable"* about a small island whose inhabitants are prohibited from using letters of the alphabet in their writing and speech as they fall off a statue of the "author" of the Lazy Dog sentence. Their language can only be returned to normal if someone can find a 32-letter (or less) pangrammatic sentence to replace the Lazy Dog one. It's a fun read, but it's also thought provoking.
*That is, a fable in the form of letters written between the characters, in which more and more letters of the alphabet become forbidden.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Re: if ARs is the Devil incarnate,
incarnate, is of course rooted, not in red, but in carn, caro-- flesh (see carnal for more information) not in carmine, based on a arabic word for qirmiz, an insect who's shell is used to create a red dye.
to be incarate, is to be made (of) flesh..
the same root shows up in words like carrion.. and carnage,
and in spanish and italian, the root give rise to the name for butcher(meat) stores.. (i don't remember the exact word in either language, but i remember recognizing the name for such stores was very close to carnivore-- which i knew meat meat eating.. when i was still in elementary school!)
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Carpal Tunnel
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butcher(meat) stores
Carnecería in Spanish. My dictionary shows macellarìa for Italian, from macellare, to slaughter
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