Statistically Improbable Meme
May. 30th, 2006 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Pick ten of your favorite books, look them up on Amazon.com, and find the list of Statistically Improbable Phrases for those novels. Pick a few SIPs from each book, list them here, and then have people guess what books they are. (Obviously, using Google or Amazon to figure it out is cheating.).
For your consideration:
1. clam beer, eternal rainbow, cloud wall
2. hundred piastres, retired baker, dear viscount
3. folding bedroom, old orrery, imaginary study
4. tormented writer, productive writer, gathering shadow [If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, identified by
missludmilla]
5. pirate city, haunted quarter, possibility mining [The Scar by China Mieville, identified by
alfvaen]
6. unicorn skull, chubby granddaughter, shuffled data [Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, identified by
abazureonna]
7. tangents paper, rarefying engine, cabinet noir
8. purring voice, little revolver
9. terrible island, zero winter, fabulous thing
10. pale suit, buffalo man, coin tricks [American Gods by Neil Gaiman, identified by
ronebofh]
Go get 'em.
For your consideration:
1. clam beer, eternal rainbow, cloud wall
2. hundred piastres, retired baker, dear viscount
3. folding bedroom, old orrery, imaginary study
4. tormented writer, productive writer, gathering shadow [If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, identified by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
5. pirate city, haunted quarter, possibility mining [The Scar by China Mieville, identified by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
6. unicorn skull, chubby granddaughter, shuffled data [Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, identified by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
7. tangents paper, rarefying engine, cabinet noir
8. purring voice, little revolver
9. terrible island, zero winter, fabulous thing
10. pale suit, buffalo man, coin tricks [American Gods by Neil Gaiman, identified by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Go get 'em.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 12:00 am (UTC)I know 3, 5 and 8 from others' instantiations of this meme, but i haven't read any of them, so i won't guess.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 01:47 am (UTC)how are "purring voice" and "little revolver" statistically improbable phrases? i'd go out on a limb and guess dashiell hammit or something, but which hammit?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 02:04 am (UTC)And 5 is a Meiville book I'm pretty damned sure, but I can't remember which one possibility mining was in. I don't this it was PSS.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 04:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-31 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-02 05:19 am (UTC)I think that counts.