Word Trees In Running Text

Authors

A. Ross Eckler

Abstract

In "Mysterious Precognitions" in the August 1998 Word Ways, Martin Gardner showed how to generate the sequence of words in running text. Start with any word, and use the following (iterative) rule: if the ith word in the sequence has n(i) letters, then the (i+1)st word is located n(i) words further in the running text. For example, take the first sentence of this paragraph: pick IN as the first word, count two words to PRECOGNITIONS, count thirteen more words to A, count one more word to SEQUENCE, and so on.

Recommended Citation

Eckler, A. Ross (1999) "Word Trees In Running Text," Word Ways: Vol. 32 : Iss. 4 , Article 11.
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol32/iss4/11