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The above quote is the first paragraph of Emma, by Jane Austen, a novel first published in 1815.

The object of this thread is to have you change ONLY one (1) word (bold it) and still have the paragraph remain grammatically correct.

The goal is to see how the paragraph reads after hopefully a 100+ changes.

If nobody minds, I'll start.


Rules:

• Any word can be changed.
• Any word can be changed more than once.

Yeah I realized and deleted it - I'll try again.

I changed back to disposition and handsome and now awaiting your edit.

~Bruno~

Bit of a cop-out, but someone needs to do it...

I withdraw my edit, China works just fine.

Ok I've messed it up,  though hung-like-a-donkey hyphenated does appear in the Oxford dictionary - I believe the Queen says it regularly. We'll stick with handsome for now.

Wait a sec! I think a hyphened phrase can replace a word. SgtSpike changed twenty-one to nine-thousand, so why not handsome to hung-like-a-donkey? Somewhere down the road that phrase may be even replaced with (?).

That said, here's the newly edited paragraph.


I was about to post the above as a stand-alone post, but now I see I need to amend this because of the following.


Here's the newly edited paragraph.


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--EC4lI2df7U/TophpWUXwrI/AAAAAAAAAmA/CIeZk9TBOlg/s1600/tumblr_lkcka6E2XD1qcjck8o1_500.jpg

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy chihuahua, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived nearly nine-thousand years in the world with very little to distress or vex China.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with a unknown home and happy chihuahua, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived nearly nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or vex China.


(I would like to thank dancupid for the post below where he caught the set-up I was forced to leave with the "only one word" rule... lest anyone think me grammatically ill-informed!)

I'm a stickler for this sort of thing - and Mansfield Park is a better novel

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy chihuahua, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived nearly nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke China.

Broke it but the last part needs fixing anyway, it'll get there eventually.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy seals-with-clubs, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived nearly nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke China.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy seals-with-clubs, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived over nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke Blueseed.

Sorry, it had to be done.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy hashes, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived over nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke Blueseed.


Honestly, I'm surprised it wasn't earlier.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy hashes, seemed to demolish some of the best blessings of Bitcoin; and had lived over nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke Blueseed.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy hashes, seemed to demolish some of the best blessings of money; and had lived over nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke Blueseed.

Sorry Edd, had to fix it.

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, clever, and rich, with an unknown home and happy hashes, seemed to demolish some of the best shortcomings of Fiat; and had lived over nine-thousand years in the Internets with very little to distress or nuke Blueseed.

Well, I was going to use fiat but kept thinking of the car.  :P

I'm not sure of the grammatical correctness of that last bit ever since Blueseed (?) was introduced.

It's easy. this:

becomes:

can we add a word at a time?

Interesting question! But if we did that, soon the paragraph may become too long. But what if you added a word, and at the same time remove a word, then the word count would remain the same?

For instance, your new paragraph (sentence) would become...

[/quote]

Then my edit would be...


Question: Should Internets be changed to internet (lower case)?

BTW, thanks to all who've contributed to date. It's amazing how the paragraph is progressing so far. I didn't plan it to come out like it has, but so far it looks like we're turning a fictional paragraph into a factual one, one word at a time.

Thanks, again.

~Bruno~

NO! IT is the Internets  ;)

You know, when you consider TOR, and the various other dark-nets, that's actually factually correct.

It just looks/reads odd. Can somebody else concur?

~Bruno~

Excellent answer!

I did change in to on. Is this still considered correct grammar?

~Bruno~

Huzzah! We have a reason!

To continue on...

Huzzah! We have a season!

Oops. Sorry. Wrong paragraph. :)

[/quote]

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, extremely brilliant, and rich, with an unknown home of happy hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured over many years on the Internets intending very little to distress or vaporize Blueseed.

There! That's the right paragraph.

-Jesse

It's spelled Tor, you nonce :P

Satoshi Nakamoto, handsome, extremely brilliant, and rich, with an unknown home of happy hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured over many years on the Internets intending very little to distress or vaporize Blueseed.

There! That's the right paragraph.

-Jesse
[/quote]


Comma now needed after the word Internets? (I inserted, but if wrong, please remove)

Well, it is now....  I still prefer the acronym to differentiate it from the publishing company, though.

I believe that semicolon is incorrect as it does not join two sentences.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8159/7423914786_15b7114fbd_z.jpg

Is it safe to reckon there weren't no Grammar Nazis in 1815? To paraphrase Meat Loaf: Life Is A Lemon (And I Want My Semicolon Back) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yljxlXRoRkg).

I gave it back  :)

i think the semi-colon is correct, but makes 'and' redundant.

as a grammar nazi, i would think it correct to write "blessings of existence; she had lived..."

@ le nazis.... Your arguement is invalid.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8161/7424038262_d358a1f015_z.jpg

http://www.rachelneumeier.com/2012/06/12/ooh-ooh-im-a-semi-colon/

When I starting thinking about creating this thread, I read several first paragraphs of famous titles, and felt this one would fit the bill for what I had in mind. I was, and still am, only vaguely familiar with Emma, let alone Jane Austin or any of her other work. This fun thread has now become a learning experience for me, and I hope for others as well.

Now back to the fun.

Satoshi Wagner, faceless, extremely brilliant, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very little to distress or vaporize banknotes.

~Bruno~

Edit: I just noticed that somebody (I won't state who) blasphemed our beloved SN.

Satoshi Wagner, faceless, extremely pregnant, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress or vaporize banknotes.

Satoshi Wagner, faceless, extremely pregnant, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress or vaporize BTCitcoin.

(when we're done with BW, you know who's next--mNw)

BTCruce Wagner, faceless, extremely pregnant, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress and vaporize BTCitcoin.

BTCruce Nakamoto, faceless, extremely pregnant, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress and vaporize BTCitcoin.

BTCruce Nakamoto, faceless, extremely pregnant, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashish, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress and vaporize BTCitcoin.

Satoshi Nakamoto, faceless, extremely private, and rich, with an unknown home of abounding hashes, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress and vaporize BTCitcoin.

I took the liberty and changed two words (see bold). Let's maintain the Satoshi Nakamoto theme for this Emma Meme (I've something up my sleeve).

Continue changing only one word at a time or adding a word but another one must be strikethrough, all the while not changing the overall theme/flavor of the paragraph or word count. The semicolon is important to this work, therefore should remain even though it may pose a modern grammatical challenge.

The end result will take Jane Austin's first paragraph of her fictitious novel Emma and turn it into a factual account of Satoshi Nakamoto, albeit a pseudonym, via changing one word at a time.

Once the end result is completed to everybody's satisfaction, an edited generation of the process will be posted, thus showcasing the first ever Emma Meme. As luck would have it, the name Satoshi Nakamoto will be the first.

The next step will be to introduce the Emma Meme to other forums, blogs, etc., having their viewership transform Emma Woodhouse to another name, one word at a time.

~Bruno~

I've modified the original premise of this exercise, dancupid (see my last post), going from going-for-the-funny to get-serious. Would you be so kind as to try your editing hand again? Thanks, bud.

~Bruno~

I'll try again (again) - I'll try to invoke my muse in my next modification.

Fair enough, bud.

---

The following is approximately where I would like to see to end up with--factual and to the point.

---

Let's continue.


On the service, my next suggestion may come across as crazy or stupid, but I'll express it nonetheless.

I would love to see the final edited iterations published in some magazine, hopefully one sold at Barnes & Noble.

~Bruno~

Satoshi Nakamoto, faceless, extremely anonymous, and shy, with an unknown home of abounding alacrity, plotted to demolish some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to distress and vaporize banknotes.

'cried Miss Crawford with alacrity' Mansfield Park. Jane Austen

That's the spirit! (although I needed to Google that--EXCELLENT!) Hopefully, the resulting paragraph does succumb to a too heavy laden verbiage one.

We're damn close now. Maybe only a few more, and we may complete the task.

~Bruno~

Satoshi Nakamoto, faceless, extremely anonymous, perhaps shy, with an unknown home of abounding alacrity, plotted to pulverize some of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to replace and vaporize banknotes.

Satoshi Nakamoto, faceless, extremely anonymous, perhaps shy, with an unknown home of abounding alacrity, advocated to pulverize all of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured for many years on the Internets, intending very much to replace and vaporize centralization.

According to http://www.wordcounttool.com/, we somehow added a word. The word count went from 40 to 41, therefore I strikethrough the word for.

~Bruno~

grammar fail

It would be every shortcoming, I presume, but we would lose words.

Brain fart.  ;)
It's 1.22 AM here, but it might be due the test I'm studying for.

I already fixed it.


How close are we into getting a consensus?

Thanks for the quick save.  ;D


Satoshi Nakamoto, faceless, extremely anonymous, perhaps shy, with an unknown home of abounding alacrity, advocated to pulverize all of the worst shortcomings of Fiat; and had endured uncountable years on the Internets, intending very much to replace and vaporize centralization.

Should Fiat be capitalized and should quotation marks be used?

And if we eliminated of in "all of the worst", what and where should a new word be placed?

Does the resulting paragraph so far personify Satoshi Nakamoto in a factual light?

~Bruno~

Do we believe that it was Satoshi's intent to destroy(?) centralization or centralized banking?

Is the following accurate? (jumping ahead)


Don't worry too much of how the resulting paragraph above was generated via one word at time, but concentrate on the final 40-word-count paragraph being accurate. Once the task is completed, I'll be able to outline how we achieved the final result.

I have no idea about this thread..



But!

"I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;a
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!b
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,c
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform:d
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a Javelin,e
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery—
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy—
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General."


Your welcome..

Repetitive.


Better word?


Dispose? Discharge? Relieve? Abrogate? Supplant?


Supplant?

I'm in the process of penning another post. Please stand by.

~Bruno~

I should have paid more attention during HS English (no college, though I did have a scholarship to MIT that I was not made aware of till my early twenties), but if I did, I probably won't have gotten a perfect 800 on the math part of the SAT (taken at Indian University in '78).

Thank you so kindly, Gladamas, for your valuable input. A revised paragraph will conclude this post coupled with possibly a concern/question or two.


So much for trying to keep a handle on the verbiage.

Gladamas is correct about the repetitiveness of the following: faceless, notably anonymous, possibly shy, with an unknown home of abounding alacrity. I suggest we keep "notably anonymous".

Further input?

~Bruno~

The original text:

For? Copying and pasting, without even bothering to clean up the footnotes?

In red is written in stone.


In bold, I propose we keep, unless a counter-argument is warranted. Underlined needs addressing.


If "promulgated to abrogate" is factually and grammatically correct, I propose we keep that for sing-song rhythm purposes.

I've also changed 'uncountable years' to 'untold years' to keep in the spirit of secrecy.

I opted to use the hyphenated version of 'hop-scotching' so that there still remains one hyphenated word in the final edit.

Original:

In red needs addressing. Use the original text below as a guide. I just added the bold text. Would this suffice? Since bank-issued is hyphenated, I changed back to 'hopscotching'.


The good news is that we retained the 40 word count.

~Bruno~

Satoshi Nakamoto, faceless, notably anonymous, possibly shy, with shit, this is hard! of abounding alacrity, promulgated to abrogate all of the worst shortcomings of fiat currency; and endured untold years hopscotching through cyberspace, intending to supplant the world's central bank-issued money.

In red needs addressing. Use the original text below as a guide. I just added the bold text. Would this suffice? Since bank-issued is hyphenated, I changed back to 'hopscotching'.


~Bruno~

Satoshi Nakamoto, intelligent, notably anonymous, and shy, with a technological drive of abounding alacrity, promulgated to abrogate all of the worst shortcomings of fiat currency; and endured untold years hopscotching through cyberspace, intending to supplant the world's central bank-issued money.


A synonym for "intelligent" (bright, brilliant, ingenious) will work also.

Something like "technological drive" (a desire to code? develop software?), but that doesn't sound quite right...

I'm thinking of a better way to rephrase "the world's central bank-issued money."

Please forgive me for editing within your quoted text. I just realized my error.


Thank you kindly, Gladamas, for this input. Would replacing intending with ordained work?


During you hunt, don't worry too much about the word count at that juncture, for we can make it up, or correct it, elsewhere.

~Bruno~

How close are we?

Original:

No problem :) thanks for the kind words!

Self-ordained works very beautifully.

Here's my thoughts on this:


I'm not sure if 'unitarily-' is a word... :P

We could use "currency" instead of "money."

Original:

WOW!


I like initiative but prefer drive because shy/drive and promulgated/abrogate gives the paragraph that singing effect.

I'm glad to see had reintroduced.

Currency does complement commissioned, coupled with the implication of cursing hard-cold-cash.

Thanks for the comment on the word self-ordained. Unitarily-commissioned seems to work nicely, but now we have two hyphenated words, and one has to go. I like yours, therefore mine needs revised.

Either hyphenated word counts as one word, and at the moment the word count stands at 39, one shy of what's needed.

I'm not sure why your an ([an?]) is in brackets and with a question mark. I feel it works fine.

~Bruno~

Original:

Gosh, way to suck all the fun out of it.

What do we have here? BadBear Driving the Daisys (family)?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=dlattach;attach=6943;type=avatar

I now realize why [and?] after some research.


I was hoping to not incorporate added articles, i.e., the the before unitarily-commissioned.

I feel that securing the internet needs mentioning.

Self-ordained to ordained should work just as well, albeit a slightly different connotation.

The word count now stands at 40.

Original:

~Bruno~

re: Reality Check
Excellent question. (If "reality" is reasonable to apply to this prim rose path. )

Line 1 : the subject
Line 2 : personal attributes of the subject
Line 3 : continued attributes of the subject
Line 4
    On Emma's side   : describes a nebulous attribute of the subject
    On Satoshi's side : describes an action taken by an unknown actor about the subject
Line 5
    On Emma's side   : describes the span of time and domain pertinent to the subject.
    On Satoshi's side : describes the span of time and an action taken by the subject for a goal in a domain.
Line 6
    On Emma's side   : describes the conditions the subject encountered.
    On Satoshi's side : describes in more details the goal required of the subject by an unknown actor.

So, the semantic structure has drifted a bit.

-Jesse

That thought has somewhat occurred to me, hence the "Reality Check". You're valuable contribution, JesseChisholm, is duly noted. I'm going to be out of pocket for a few hours, but when I return this evening, I'm going to work on this further, for your valid points do need addressing.

~Bruno~

Would anyone like me to produce an animation of the text when we're done?

Seriously? Seriously, are you serious? I would love to see any of your previous work. I look forward to your reply.

Ça me plaît. (i4t)

~Bruno~

PS: I'm in the process of hashing out Jesse's suggestions. From my vague understanding of semantics, it seems I/we only have it half right.

My apologies for opting for my last iteration, but it doesn't really matter at this point because it looks like a major rewrite is in order.

Per Jesse's observations, I'll/we'll now work backwards to bring the overall semantics in line.


According to Jesse, in red above is fine--semantically matches. It's the other three parts that need addressing.

~Bruno~

Semantically speaking, worrying about verbiage late, does the following work for the forth line? (resolving the semantics one-line-at-a-time)


from...

Zut alors! Phinnaeus, vous parlez français mon vieux? C'est une chose merveilleuse à apprendre.

Once this dog is done... let's see how many languages we can translate it into for teh benefit of the world-wide bit-community.

I am serious, but you sound too excited. It wouldn't be fancy, with Blender'd 3D graphics, it would just be antialiased text in a pre-determined font changing word-by-word. I'd be using GDI+ and various other aspects of the WinAPI.

Ah, et je parlais un peu de francais aussi.

Encore, zut! And yes, an animated version would be delightful... go for it.

I'd prefer the text be done first, but I can start working on the program... I think I'll use the magical AutoHotkey_L (http://l.autohotkey.net)

Now do you see why evoorhees is my favorite writer?  ;D

This may sound pompous coming from a guy who only has a rudimentary command of the English language, but I have grand plans for this project.


Upon visiting the linked site, I still have no idea what you have in mind for animation, nimda, but I will take your word for it that you have something in stored. It would be best, of course, to wait till the final draft is completed.

~Bruno~

PS: All French words/phrases used in English posts should be followed with (i4t) so that theymos can easily find them via a search on this forum (or via Google +Bitcoin).

e.g.: Ah, et je parlais un peu de francais aussi. (i4t)

(quoting myself to get this post above the fold)


Would the above now work for the forth line, thus having everything up to the semicolon semantically correct?



~Bruno~

Just for teh record... semantically speaking:

“Teh” is an Internet slang term derived from the common typographical error of the English definite article “the.” The word has been since embraced by English-speaking internet users as a stylistic preference in l33tspeak, similar to the usage of “1” as a suffix after an exclamation point. In addition, the slang term can be used ironically to pose oneself as a noob or mock someone’s lack of online communication skills.

While the typographical error “teh” most likely became commonplace with the advents of personal computers and QWERTY keyboards, its deliberate usage is thought to have started in the late 1990s to early 2000s with real-time chat in online gaming. The earliest Urban Dictionary definition of “teh,” submitted on November 23rd, 2002, also explains the phenomenon as a “deliberate typo error of ‘the’ used in online gaming discussion.” As of May 2012, Urban Dictionary lists a total of 63 entries defining the meaning and usage of “teh.”

In 2004, Metafilter user bshort posted a question in the AskMeFi (Ask Metafilter) subforum about the meaning of “teh,” which led to a discussion regarding the early adaptors of the term. In the thread, at least three users pointed to Something Awful’s columnist and video game specialist JeffK, who became infamous for his complete disregard and ineptitude in proper grammar and spelling. Beginning in the mid-2000s, intentional use of “teh” became even more widespread with the rise of LOLcat image macros on 4chan.

In online publications, the slang term has been used as the headline in a number of blog posts and discussion threads, some of the more notable references including a 2008 Jezebel article titled “Josh Peck is Teh Hotness in the Wackness” and a 2010 Media Bistro article titled “Hollywood is Teh Suck for Women.” The intentional error may be also invoked when citing an overused quote or axiom, as to neutralize any unwanted connotation of loftiness or pompousness by using faulty grammar.

The word has been also adopted by developers and programmers as the name of software projects. The most notable example is TEH, a minimalist blog engine written using Google App Engine. TEH Engine is a prototype 3D game engine, with TEH being a recursive acronym for “TEH Extremely Hardcore.”

In l33tspeak, the word “teh” is used as an intensifier for English nouns and adjectives with an underlying implication that the typographical mistake had been produced as a result of excitement.

    When “teh” is placed before an adjective, it is used as an intensifier for its superlative form; for example, “that is teh lame” can be interpreted as “that is the lamest” in conventional English. This is also comparable to the use of the definite article el in Spanish language, according to the Wiktionary article.

    The article can be also used with proper names to put extra emphasis on a particular subject or for humorous effect, as in “teh John.” A number of equivalents to “teh” have been cited as similar examples in cross-comparison of different languages like Greek, Latin and colloquial German.

    In addition, “teh” can be used in front of a verb in a novel form of gerund, turning nearly any word into an intensified noun in its superlative form; for example, the phrase “this is teh suck” can be read as “this is the suckiest” or “this is the worst.”

Mais pourquois il n'y a pas le mot "lse" en francais? (i4t)

My occasional use of "teh" has usually been as a gerund, usually expressed as "is teh sux, bro". Limited mainly to IRC conversation.

Read the first paragraph so far, and think I've been pawned. I guess that explains why I've seen "teh" so often. Back to reading the rest of your post. (have I ever mention to you that I like reading your posts?)

~Bruno~

Oh noes, goes 2fer... teh pwnage on pawned!

Re-quoting myself so that I can move on to the fifth line.

I'm seeking approval.

~Bruno~

Can you set the animated text to music? I'm leaning toward this 1815 song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYjBNIl2fe4

~Bruno~

I guess Line 5 is a simple fix, as well.


to


now revising all to... (sans Line 6)


Line 6 stills needs to be addressed

~Bruno~