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This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself

This is the first sentence of this story. This is the second sentence. This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself. This sentence is questioning the intrinsic value of the first two sentences. This sentence is to inform you, in case you haven't already realized it, that this is a self-referential story, that is, a story containing sentences that refer to their own structure and function. This is a sentence that provides an ending to the first paragraph.


This is the link to the story

By Klaus Ostermann at 2006-05-01 16:32 | Fun | Meta-Programming | other blogs | 17536 reads

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Older than the hills

Seriously, though, some of the best humor I've seen is from the original article(s) that included this story, now in Metamagical Themas:

  • This sentence is in Spanish while you aren't reading it.
  • This sentence no verb.
  • This sentence has cabbage six words.
  • If I had finished this sentence,

et cetera.

By quamaretto at Mon, 2006-05-01 17:50 | login or register to post comments

This is my first comment

This is my first comment ever on this site.

Oh, and GEB.

By Dan Ferrante at Mon, 2006-05-01 18:07 | login or register to post comments

This is the title of my second comment on this site...

This is part of the body of my second comment on this site, and the third sentence I have posted on this site. (This is the fourth and first parenthesized sentence.)

This is a failed attempt to condemn tireless pedantry regarding self reference.

This is a second failed attempt to condemn tireless pedantry regarding self reference.

This is the [nth] failed attempt at condemning tireless pedantry, formed from this failed-self-referential-pedantry-condemning template.

This is the [nth] failed attempt to condemn tireless referential pedantry, formed from this [mth] failed-pedantry-condemning-template forming template.

By quamaretto at Mon, 2006-05-01 19:05 | login or register to post comments

while his work has nothing

while his work has nothing like the same emphasis on self-reference, that reminded me very strongly of david markson's works (at least, the ones i have read - which are only two, but which were similar enough to suggest that reading one may be sufficient).

anyway, i would strongly recommend wittgenstein's mistress. although it has very little indeed to do with programming.

(and after writing the above i see that he has a book titled "this is not a novel". which just goes to show)

By andrew cooke at Mon, 2006-05-01 19:41 | login or register to post comments

Funny...

I just read Wittgenstein's Mistress last week... I'd also highly recommend it...

By Matt Hellige at Tue, 2006-05-02 03:13 | login or register to post comments

This thread...

This thread is not complete without this review.

By sandr at Mon, 2006-05-01 22:23 | login or register to post comments

Expressions that talk about themselves...

... are also talked about in this article.

By sandr at Mon, 2006-05-01 22:38 | login or register to post comments

You are about to begin...

...reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

By sigfpe at Mon, 2006-05-01 23:16 | login or register to post comments

Fixpoint of self-reference

This project (http://www.reenigne.org/review.html) aims at creating a book which consists of nothing but reviews of itself by iterating the process of reviewing. The idea is due to D. Hofstadter (GEB).

By Karl Klose at Wed, 2006-05-17 17:23 | login or register to post comments

link to page has changed

The page with the story has moved to a new location

By pintman at Sat, 2007-02-17 11:25 | login or register to post comments