das@ucla-cs.UUCP (05/12/85)
What is the current record for shortest meaningful sentence that uses all the
letters of the alphabet? For some time, I've known about
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32 letters)
and a few months ago learned of
Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters)
A few days ago, I heard
Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex! (28 letters!)
It's appealing because of the waltz-jig tie-in. Who discovered it? (Actually,
it came to me as "Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.", and I played with it
to remove the proper noun.)
-- David Smallberg, das@{ucla-cs.ARPA,cs.ucla.edu}, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!dastallman@dspo.UUCP (05/15/85)
> What is the current record for shortest meaningful sentence that uses all the > letters of the alphabet? > -- David Smallberg, das@{ucla-cs.ARPA,cs.ucla.edu}, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das What about: "Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz." (26 letters!) Which means: glyphs (rock carvings) by the bank of a fjord in a circular valley (cwm) vexed (vext, archaic spelling) a quiz (eccentric person). I saw this sentence several years ago in a book called "Oddities and Curiousities of Words and Literature". The same person who invented the above came up with some others that were nearly as obscure such as: "Vext cwm fly jabs kurd qoph - zing!" In this one an angry valley fly attacks a Hebrew letter written by a Turkish tribesman. -- C. David Tallman - dspo!tallman@LANL or {ucbvax!unmvax,ihnp4}!lanl!dspo!tallman Los Alamos National Laboratory - E-10/Data Systems Los Alamos, New Mexico - (505) 667-8495
jaw@ames.UUCP (James A. Woods) (05/20/85)
# A is for Amy who fell down the stairs,
B is for Basil assaulted by bears...
-- "Gashlycrumb Tinies" excerpt, Edward St. John Gorey
> What is the current record for shortest meaningful sentence that uses all the
> letters of the alphabet?
Guess you missed all the hoopla last year in the annals of net.puzzle
about the minimal English pangram:
Jocks vend, fix, quartz BMW glyph.
which can loosely be interpreted as the destiny of a certain hood ornament
curio sold at a fraternity garage sale.
This was discovered by postprocessing some VAX 11/750 output after
running about six CPU hours of very optimized C code. If you're interested
in the original postings, or want my paper on the anagram algorithm,
send a note this way. Of course, human-concocted phrases like this have
been done before -- see the Guinness book, or better yet, "Palindromes
and Anagrams" by Bergerson [Dover, 1973].
On a similar topic, kudos to Guy Jacobson for the minimal (?)
ordered alphaset containment code. The relaxed version of the original
puzzle looks interesting, too. By changing a routine in my anagram program,
I believe I can get some answers on this one, though I'm not sure they'll
beat the 4-word posting. More fun for "web2" on a Cray (when do I
get that account on the 2, Seymour?). Stay tuned ...
-- James A. Woods ames!jaw or, jaw@riacsjeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) (05/22/85)
> > What is the current record for shortest meaningful sentence that uses all the > > letters of the alphabet? > > Guess you missed all the hoopla last year in the annals of net.puzzle > about the minimal English pangram: > > Jocks vend, fix, quartz BMW glyph. > > which can loosely be interpreted as the destiny of a certain hood ornament > curio sold at a fraternity garage sale. > > -- James A. Woods ames!jaw or, jaw@riacs The Guiness Book of World Records gives: Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. Which means "the drawings on the walls of the fjord in the rounded valley annoyed the odd person." -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) aka Swazoo Koolak {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff
allynh@ucbvax.ARPA (Allyn Hardyck) (06/02/85)
In article <424@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes: >The Guiness Book of World Records gives: > > Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. > >Which means "the drawings on the walls of the fjord in the rounded valley >annoyed the odd person." It certainly does the job of having all the letters in the sentence, but it's definitely not meaningful. How can you have a fjord ("a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes") in a rounded valley?
john@x.UUCP (John Woods) (06/03/85)
> In article <424@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes: > >The Guiness Book of World Records gives: > > Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. > >Which means "the drawings on the walls of the fjord in the rounded valley > >annoyed the odd person." >It certainly does the job of having all the letters in the sentence, but it's >definitely not meaningful. How can you have a fjord ("a narrow inlet of the >sea between cliffs or steep slopes") in a rounded valley? > Just get Slartibartfast interested in cwms*! ---------- * I seem to recall that the plural of "cwm" is more complicated than that, but my Webster's Unabridged does not contain cwm (surprising, I have the 15-pound model). -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA "MU" said the Sacred Chao...
riks@teklds.UUCP (Rik Smoody) (06/03/85)
> In article <424@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes: > >The Guiness Book of World Records gives: > > > > Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. > > > >Which means "the drawings on the walls of the fjord in the rounded valley > >annoyed the odd person." > > It certainly does the job of having all the letters in the sentence, but it's > definitely not meaningful. How can you have a fjord ("a narrow inlet of the > sea between cliffs or steep slopes") in a rounded valley? See? It vext you, too!
nxn@ihuxm.UUCP (Dave Nixon) (06/04/85)
> >The Guiness Book of World Records gives: > > > > Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. > > > >Which means "the drawings on the walls of the fjord in the rounded valley > >annoyed the odd person." > > It certainly does the job of having all the letters in the sentence, but it's > definitely not meaningful. How can you have a fjord ("a narrow inlet of the > sea between cliffs or steep slopes") in a rounded valley? If there were a major earthquake in the Himalayas, resulting in Mt. Everest moving down to sea level, the western cwm might become an inlet of the sea. I think the south west face of Everest and the Lhotse face qualify as "cliffs or steep slopes." Can the width of the western cwm (about a mile) be considered narrow? Maybe our hypothetical earthquake should fix this too. Slartibartfast would have approved.
graner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Nicolas Graner) (06/05/85)
> > Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32 letters) > > Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31 letters) > > Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex! (28 letters) > > Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. (26 letters) > > Jocks vend, fix, quartz BMW glyph. (26 letters) > Does anybody know of similar records in other languages? (I am especially interested in French, but also German, Spanish etc.) Nic. {ihnp4,seismo,allegra,...}!ut-ngp!graner *If Murphy's law can go wrong, it won't*
mcal@ihuxb.UUCP (Mike Clifford) (06/06/85)
> In article <424@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes: > >The Guiness Book of World Records gives: > > Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. > >Which means "the drawings on the walls of the fjord in the rounded valley > >annoyed the odd person." > > It certainly does the job of having all the letters in the sentence, but it's > definitely not meaningful. How can you have a fjord ("a narrow inlet of the > sea between cliffs or steep slopes") in a rounded valley? Does a fiord have walls? I hate that! Mike Clifford