A prisoner has a limited supply of paper and ink so to save resources, he decided to refrain from using letters that extend above or below the line (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, or y). With this kind of constraint, can he write anything worthwhile?
Well, depending on the prisoner’s level of creativity, a lot can actually be written. Ian Monk offered the following:
a russian con’s economic missive
we were once seven con men, we are now seven cons. as communism was over we saw easier success in american consumerism, i.e. crime. in a moscow inn, we swore: — seven is one, so one is seven … soon we came across a scam. our main man wove us a nice wee earner: — we own a zinc mine. since our russian economic crisis came in, our income’s never risen. we can cram ice in our mine’s veins, raise rumours re our ice mine’s immense resources, con morons we are mere zeros. as soon as career men see our ice, we win ’em over. once we’ve won ’em over, we receive numerous ecus or euros. as soon as we’ve our monies, we serve ’em arsenic in wine. we can even recommence on numerous occasions. … our scam was a success. our asses never saw sense. we were euros in. we saw our main man serve our vicious wine mix … a near miss .. our arsenic was mere mouse venom. some asses were survivors: — summon a coroner, someone swore. — or a nurse. — or some rozzers. so we ran. we swam across a river. as soon as no one was near us, we wove our monies in wee canvas cases we wore in our arses. we ran on. in vain … someone saw us on vanavara’s main avenue. a commissioner, nine rozzers, seven airmen, six cia men overcame us. we were sworn in. we are now in moscow in irons in room nine. as soon as someone receives or sos, come … run … save us … since no one’s ever come across our economies, our ransoms are even now in our arses.
Reference (Click to Show)
Harry Matthews et al (2005), Oulipo Compendium
A writing challenge…I like it.
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Great! Here I struggle with a hidden acrostic.
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I wonder how long it took to write that passage?
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He had a lot of time on his hands I suppose…
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Good one👍
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This is truly hard to beat! Excellent work with minimalist letters!
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🎃🎃🎃
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That’s criminal thinking for you. One has to wonder how many less words (hence paper & ink) he could’ve used if he’d included all those letters he excluded and just written them inside the lines. Creative and funny, but silly and likely wasteful of his limited resources.
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Heh, indeed…
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There are several commas in there, too – they drop below the line.
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I think the ‘i’ is within the line. This was great!
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Nice one. Thanks.
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Isn’t the ‘i’ one dot over the line?
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Personally, that’t what I thought too. Perhaps, Mr. Monk considered that it’s just a dot so no big deal. Who knows…
Anyway, the apostrophes are also over the line.
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Clever!
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