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  #1  
Old 01-28-2004, 09:02 PM
joel2006 joel2006 is offline
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Default another question for math guys

Is there any way to compute the odds that four consecutive sentences in a paragraph would end in four specific words (for example the words ' i', 'love', 'hot', and 'pizza')
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  #2  
Old 01-29-2004, 01:07 AM
Eihli Eihli is offline
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Default Re: another question for math guys

Without knowing what the paragraph is about?
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  #3  
Old 01-29-2004, 02:25 AM
sam h sam h is offline
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Default Re: another question for math guys

Well, you would first have to decide which words were in the universe of possibility. You could take the rest of your life to count all the words in the Oxford English Dictionary, making sure to include variations in tense and person, and then exclude those words that could not end a sentence like "the" and raise that number to the 4th.

Unless you're reading Finnegan's Wake, in which case "the" might be valid.
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  #4  
Old 01-29-2004, 01:43 PM
andyfox andyfox is offline
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Default Re: another question for math guys

I can end a sentence with the word "the."
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  #5  
Old 01-29-2004, 03:40 PM
bigpooch bigpooch is offline
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Default Re: another question for math guys

Depending on the author, the probability is either 0 or 1.
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