A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Matthew W. Jackson — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:42:00 GMT

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re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Michael S. Kaplan — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:48:15 GMT

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re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Michael S. Kaplan — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:48:30 GMT

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

kfarmer — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 21:14:28 GMT

You don't have to click the Start button to shut down. You can use Ctrl-Alt-Delete, instead.

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Michael S. Kaplan — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 21:30:36 GMT

Hi kfarmer --

Yes, very true. But if you are trying to look at the UI there is no hint other than the bug button that says "Start" on it....

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Mihai — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 21:43:37 GMT

"The shortest mail written in history occurred when Victor Hugo wrote his editor asking about the sale of his new book 'Les Miserables'. He just wrote '?'. The editor, who did not believe in wasting words and ink either, answered '!'."

(http://www.netfundu.com/homeA/didyouknow.asp?ques=277)

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

petal — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 01:38:27 GMT

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Mike Williams — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 01:51:31 GMT

O U Z Y!

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Mike Williams — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 01:53:23 GMT

Actually wouldn't it be shorter if he chose a letter whose line-segments were less than Z (and sansserif helps!)

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

AndrewSeven — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 16:13:18 GMT

Isn't the start button the start of an activity; so you start somthing to shut down.

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Michael S. Kaplan — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 17:18:45 GMT

Andrew -- that is indeed the justification I refer to in the post... :-)

Shorter yet

Language Log — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 01:58:53 GMT

In response to Geoff Pullum's post on the Shortest published sentence of the year ("Z."),

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Charles — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 06:48:37 GMT

Well, it's only "published" in the sense of blogs being self-published, but I've seen bloggers use the following to indicate speechlessness by one of the conversers in response to something said by the other converser:

...

but then, technically it's not a sentence.

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Michael S. Kaplan — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 06:49:50 GMT

There are now several contenders who either claim that the single bit of punctuation is not a valid sentence or alternately that it is but their pragmatic basis is more sound.

To them, I say the following:

?

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

Alan Gunn — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 18:47:12 GMT

Some years ago, a journal called "Word Ways" published a whole poem, the "No-Line Limerick," containing not a single word or symbol. (I wish I could give credit to the author, but I've forgotten.) You have to work up to it gradually, starting with the two-line limerick:

There once was a man from Peru,
Whose limericks would end with line two.

Next comes the one-line limerick:

There once was a man from Verdun.

Finally, the no-line limerick, which is about a man from Nepal:

re: A shorter 'shortest published sentence of the year' ?

JAKE — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:36:12 GMT

Riotiously, nerdly funny!

As a computer science Prof, this is the kind of stuff that can keep my classes alive.

Thanks!