# What is the next word in this sentence?

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 ... ?

• Eternal soul for Internet points! Look at all these soulless puppets hehe – Alex May 22 '15 at 16:11
• People at Puzzling.SE be like "shut up and take my soul!" – dmg May 22 '15 at 16:18

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.

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!

• 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. – Spencerkatty May 22 '15 at 21:11

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.)

• OK, but why? Explanations always required on Puzzling. – Engineer Toast May 22 '15 at 16:14
• 23846264338327950288... You have an extra 1 (I) in your quote. – ace May 22 '15 at 19:29