Comments | mister_tea: Fascinating!

mister_tea

Fascinating!

Jul 21, 2006 22:19

See how long it takes you to figure out what's so weird about Gadsby, a novel by Ernest Wright. That's the first chapter behind the link, and the links at the bottom of that page will take you to subsequent chapters. Clicking the "Gadsby" link at the bottom will spoil the fun, so don't do it til you've figured it out! There's even a hint a few ( Read more... )

Comments 6

rsadelle July 22 2006, 04:49:24 UTC

Hah! I guessed correctly without even clicking on the link, and a single keypress (I have the find as you type feature turned on for all text not just links in Mozilla; I think it also exists in Firefox) confirmed it.

rowena_zane July 22 2006, 05:30:14 UTC

Crazy!! I was lazy and went straight for the link.

uzbradistan July 24 2006, 13:40:23 UTC

Ditto.

Mr. Tea, how did you come across this singular work?

(I wasn't able to finish the first chapter. I think that the author proved that, while it's certainly possible to write a novel without the letter "e", it's not possible to write a good novel without the letter "e".)

mister_tea July 24 2006, 14:21:21 UTC

Well, hmph! Apparently my readers are all lazy bums.

I came across one of those silly lists of "OMG Amazing Facts!!" which contained quite a few "facts" that I know for certain to be fake -- it even had the old canard "It's impossible to lick your elbow"! Ha! I disproved that one in about 2 seconds. (Yes, that's right. Let it be known that I can lick my elbow.) Anyway, the list mentioned that there was a novel with no "e", and it even listed the author, so it was easy to look up and verify.

uzbradistan July 24 2006, 19:09:57 UTC

Just to clarify, I'm not a lazy bum so much as an unobservant one. I read almost all of the first page before I caved. Alas, I never picked up on the missing E's.

You can lick your elbow??? I won't believe it until I see it, you freak. :)

Speaking (literally!) of "old canards" on those types of forwards, I've always wondered if ducks' quacks really don't echo, as is often claimed, and how we know this to be true...

moselle July 25 2006, 12:50:18 UTC

I thought it was that he didn't use "the," and I immediately clicked on the link...at least I was partially right.