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WARNING: You could totally search online for this and find the answer. Note the tag. Yes, you can cheat and I wouldn't know. However, that's not nearly as much fun and you'd be trading your eternal soul for internet points. Even if this is solved quickly by someone searching or recognizing it, I like the idea and think that something like it could be incorporated into future puzzles.

The words in this sentence follow a definite pattern. What is that pattern and what should the next word be? (There are, technically, many words that fit the pattern but there is an obvious "best" choice.)

Man, I can’t - I shan’t! - formulate an anthem where the words comprise mnemonics (dreaded mnemonics) for ... ?

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    $\begingroup$ Eternal soul for Internet points! Look at all these soulless puppets hehe $\endgroup$
    – Alex
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 16:11
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    $\begingroup$ People at Puzzling.SE be like "shut up and take my soul!" $\endgroup$
    – dmg
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ Related topic: Cadaeic.net/cadenza $\endgroup$
    – Spencerkatty
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 20:41

3 Answers 3

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The answer is:

pi

The reason for this is:

Taking the length of each word produces 3141592653589793 which are the first 16 digits of pi. The next digit is 2, so 'pi' is a natural final word for the sentence.

By the way, for what it's worth I hadn't seen this before

I just started looking at the lengths of the words and after '314', I figured I was on the right track.

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The words have the same number of letters of pi digits. For example, Man has 3, I has 1, can't has 4.

I've already heard this from a math student (friend) few months ago. I think that the phrase is actually longer than the one you posted, since my friend claimed to know at least 100 words! I'm really not going to learn it, though!

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  • $\begingroup$ At one point I had over 1,000 words memorized from the Cadaeic Cadenza.A ssimilar concept based on several different famous works. I've since forgotten most of it, but it was fun to recite when I knew it. $\endgroup$
    – Spencerkatty
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 21:11
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pi. The numerals just bother me always... even the dry anterior! Try to request something lower (zero) in numerary aptitude.

(I didn't look it up, but I did recognize it.)

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  • $\begingroup$ OK, but why? Explanations always required on Puzzling. $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 16:14
  • $\begingroup$ 23846264338327950288... You have an extra 1 (I) in your quote. $\endgroup$
    – user12205
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 19:29

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