What a great name for a weblog: "Statistically Improbable Phrases"

[dianeduane]

I ran into this on Amazon this morning while adding something to a wishlist. Down at the bottom of a book's listing you'll find this data, harvested (I'd guess) from the "Look Inside" feature.

So I went immediately to find out what some of mine would have been. (Anything to put off a little longer the trauma of another wrestling match with the Big Meow mailing lists. Yes, we're about to shake the can again: another challenge/matching grant will be turned loose shortly.)

From Wizards at War: otherspace pocket, spell diagram, dog biscuit box, royal sire, annoyed breath, transit circle, blaster fire, mobile weapon, giant bugs, manual functions, other wizards, pup tent

From The Book of Night with Moon: ehhif wizards, sixth claw, flirted her tail, malfunctioning gate, patent gate, neural inhibitor, lashed her tail, tenth life, stretched fore, other wizards, string structure, tail lashed, main concourse, young wizard, flea powder

Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: fairy gold, residence tower (Sheesh, is that all??)

Must look into this further...

Tags: statistically improbable phrases, Amazon.com

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Good luck vs. the list. Your commentary about the struggles with same often puts me in mind of my friend John's fanfiction archive, and the best story summary in there: Fandom: PHP Slash; Pairing(s): PHP/MySQL; Rating: NC-17 for frequent strong language and violence.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

*doubletake* "fairy gold" is statistically improbable?

Things like this always make me want to find out what's wrong with the world...

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

I could probably come up with several more SIPs for Stealing the Elf-King's Roses without much extra thought. To bad that Amazon doesn't have that set up as a WIKI-feature. Book of Night with Moon needs 'pastrami' in there, too.

It seems strange that 'dog biscuit box' and 'flea powder' are SIPS, but then again, I'm a pet owner...

[oilsdragon.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that "pastrami" counts as a phrase on these things, since it's only one word... otherwise I'd agree with you completely! :P

[keristor.livejournal.com]

This may be culturally based, but I (in the UK) don't find pastrami at all improbable (nor "pup tent"), and do find "dog biscuit box" improbably (but not "flea powder"). Then again, it depends what other books are used to gather the statistics, if they are based on "mainstream" books them nost of the fantasy terms will be flagged, if they are mainly American then British phrases will be unusual, etc.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

So what do you Brits call dog biscuits? Or is it that you keep them in a tin? I've always thought of dog biscuits as being one of the last vestiges in American English of the British form of biscuit.

'Pup tent' is becoming a regionalism in American English. They say it in the Midwest (where I grew up) but not here on the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard. They also don't wear 'slickers' here.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Dog biscuits are dog biscuits, perhaps we do keep them in a tin (or a packet or a sack if they were bought that way). It's the 'box' part which sounds a little odd to me.

We don't wear slickers, the equivalent is called a Mac (for Macintosh -- yes, people who use Macs don't know enough to come in out of the rain!), especially if it's a "plastic mac" (an overcoat made out of a moderately thick plastic, sometimes transparent). I know the term 'slicker' better as a "city slicker" from US TV etc.

[cjmr.livejournal.com]

Slickers are plastic macs.

Boggle

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

What's statistically improbable about pup tents and flea powder? That's just plain weird.