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From: tallman@dspo.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.puzzle
Subject: Re: Alphabet soup
Message-ID: <222@dspo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-May-85 13:17:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: dspo.222
Posted: Wed May 15 13:17:27 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 16-May-85 21:46:24 EDT
References: <5370@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 20

> What is the current record for shortest meaningful sentence that uses all the
> letters of the alphabet?  
> -- David Smallberg, das@{ucla-cs.ARPA,cs.ucla.edu}, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das

What about: "Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz."  (26 letters!)

Which means: glyphs (rock carvings) by the bank of a fjord in a circular
valley (cwm) vexed (vext, archaic spelling) a quiz (eccentric person).
I saw this sentence several years ago in a book called "Oddities and
Curiousities of Words and Literature".

The same person who invented the above came up with some others that
were nearly as obscure such as:  "Vext cwm fly jabs kurd qoph - zing!"
In this one an angry valley fly attacks a Hebrew letter written by a
Turkish tribesman.

-- 
C. David Tallman - dspo!tallman@LANL  or {ucbvax!unmvax,ihnp4}!lanl!dspo!tallman
Los Alamos National Laboratory - E-10/Data Systems
Los Alamos, New Mexico  -  (505) 667-8495