I have to admit that I’m a lover of the English language, and a good word brain teaser can just suck me right in! I love plays on words, puns, and all sorts of word puzzles. At one point, I was a crossword puzzle junkie. Alas! I have little time for the fun wordy stuff these days, but I still love a good word puzzle from time to time.
And, that brings me to the weekend word brain teaser! The whole thing is pretty self-explanatory; just read the directions and try to figure out why this paragraph is so unusual. (Not this paragraph, but the paragraph below, smarty pants!)
Did you see what was so unusual about it? I know that some of you will pick it up right away, but others might not see it for a bit. And that’s ok! If you’re not a word junkie, it’s not obvious at all.
If you give up on this word brain teaser and want the answer, click below to expand it.
*CLICK FOR THE ANSWER*
The paragraph above is so unusual, because it does not contain the letter E, which is the most common letter in the English language. Try writing more than a few sentences without the letter E, and you’ll see what I mean. I tried it once, and it’s so much harder than it sounds! However, an author named Ernest Vincent Wright did accomplish this! In 1939, he wrote Gadsby, a 50,000 word novel without the letter E!
… and Georges Perec did so with his novel “La Disparition” (300 pages), published in 1969.
It’s not unusual for what’s in it, but for what isn’t.
My wife and I noticed if you separate the sentences and put them in any order it still has the same meaning and the paragraph has the same topic. Are we the only ones that noticed this.