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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>you can pretty much eliminate all 3 or more letter words
ooh.. oho! hoo!!
-joe (good point, though) friday
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
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some sort of factorial Fibonacci? I wouldn't make it seem that complicated. It's simply a matter of the factorial of any number. I thought the factorial of a number was the ADDITION of all previous numbers, not the multiplication of them? That is, !8 = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8=36 It is a factorial multiplication, whatever the technical term for that is, but not THE factorial of the number. I think?  I think the word you're looking for is factorial. OK, you're right I'm wrong, like I said I'm not good at remembering maths. So what is the addition of the numbers called then?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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OK, you're right I'm wrong, like I said I'm not good at remembering maths. So what is the addition of the numbers called then? I guess you are talking about triangular numbers: T(1) = 1 T(2) = 1 + 2 = 3 T(3) = 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 T(n) = 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + (n-1) + n
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Joined: Feb 2008
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old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067 |
Yes, it's all coming vaguely back to me now.
And the fact that 10 is a triangular number and we use base ten is what gives the number 9 (10-1) its special properties, like if you multiply it by any whole integer above zero and then add the digits of the answer until you get back to one digit again it's always 9. Or something like that. But this is a word forum not a number forum so i'd better shut up now.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 631 |
Another interesting question is: What is the longest sentence that is grammatical through all its possible permutations?
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Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067
old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,067 |
Another interesting question is: What is the longest sentence that is grammatical through all its possible permutations? What do you mean? There are many ways you can change (ie 'permute') a sentence. Do you mean word order? Clause order? Anagramise it? What?
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Another interesting question is: What is the longest sentence that is grammatical through all its possible permutations? What do you mean? There are many ways you can change (ie 'permute') a sentence. Do you mean word order? Clause order? Anagramise it? What? In the spirit of common sense I'd go with word order. Would it include changing of parts of speech? E.g., S V O Dog bites man S V O Bites dog man Adj S V Dog man bites Adj S V Man dog bites etc.
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
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I'd go with word order
Though, I, too, thought of word order, rearranging higher constituents might be interesting. Some might sound a bit yoda-ish: Nearly everybody likes strawberry ice cream => Strawberry ice cream, nearly everybody likes. Doing it at the word level, would be more difficult in more highly inflected languages (e.g., Russian, Latin) and easier in less (e.g., Chinese). Actually, in Russian or Latin, moving the words around would not change the general meaning of the sentence. In Chinese, words are commonly adjectives, nouns, and verbs.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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addict
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addict
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>Some might sound a bit yoda-ish
Absolutely. But I was just thinking there are some sets of words that are grammatical in almost every possible order. Best approach would be to think of words that are homographs of other words and have lots of meanings.
This is not the best example of that, but...
It will say “you”.
“It”, you say, Will?
It? Say “Will”, you!
Will it say “you”?
Will you say it?
“Will it”, you say?
Say it, will you?
Say you will it!
You say it, Will.
You say it will.
etc.
What is the longest set of words with the most permutations?
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