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BACKGROUND

I asked a question about words: Longest Word With *Only* Repeating Character Pairs

The goal was to find a word where every character pair was repeated at least once. This was vulnerable to dictionary searches and didn't require human creativity. In addition, every answer was of the format [string][same string][first letter of string]. For instance, ALFALFA is [ALF][ALF][A]. In fact, from my own quick and non-technical figurings, this format is the only possible format that can fit such a challenge. The answers found were interesting but it was this conclusion that I found more interesting.

CHALLENGE

Form a grammatically correct sentence in which every letter pair appears at least twice.

Clarifications: (The example below is invalid and is only intended to assist in clarification.)

  • Words can not be repeated but variations of a word do not count as a repetition. This includes plurals, possessives, contractions, etc. Uni the Unicorn's eating the unicorns!
  • Words count as a repetition if they match when converted to all uppercase and any non-letters are removed
  • Any non-letter (spaces, hyphens, apostrophes, etc.) should be stripped prior to analysis. The result will be just a string of letters. UnitheUnicornseatingtheunicorns
  • Capitalization does not matter. Convert them all to uppercase if that helps. UNITHEUNICORNSEATINGTHEUNICORNS

Disclosure: I don't have a solution yet.

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    $\begingroup$ It's sort of like finding a palindrome, don't you think? $\endgroup$ – Conor O'Brien Jul 7 '15 at 16:51
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think the buffalo sentence counts since it used the same definition of 'buffalo' three times (twice). $\endgroup$ – Bailey M Jul 7 '15 at 16:56
  • $\begingroup$ @yeah, and it's the same word a bunch of times, though with different meanings, as you said. $\endgroup$ – Nyk 232 Jul 7 '15 at 16:57
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    $\begingroup$ For the record, the example sentence does not qualify, as it has only one instance of the "se" pairing. $\endgroup$ – VictorHenry Jul 7 '15 at 17:18
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    $\begingroup$ The problem is that this task becomes easier for longer sentence, not harder. $\endgroup$ – xnor Jul 8 '15 at 3:25
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247 letters

Poorly named IT company launches their new product

The Stand - for all your system sensationalising and standardising needs. A systemic and systematic approach to system standardisation.

Sensational Lice Mice Stand sensationally systematically re-systems, sensationalised standardised standards, standardising sensationalising standard systematisation system systematisations, un-systematically re-standardised standardisation systems, unstandardised systematic and systemic.

The sensational Mice with the Lice have a new product the "Stand" that sensationally systematically does re-systemming of sensationalised standardised standards. As well as standardising the sensationalising of standard of the systematisations of systematisation systems, as well as un-systematically re-standardised standardisation systems, and the unstandardised systematic and systemic

Much longer sentences can be made using lists of things, it is probably possible the make a sentence using every word as a long enough list will eventually contain every pair of characters. Even those pairs that don't appear in words or appear in only single words can be formed from the letters of adjacent words.

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    $\begingroup$ Hrm, yeah, so there are 26^2 = 676 different letter pairs, each of which is 2 characters, and they must be repeated at least once, so 676*2*2 = 2704. Once you build a sentence with at least 2704 characters that contains 2 instances of each letter pairing, you can just add words on to infinity without worrying about the repetition problem. Perhaps an interesting restriction would be to require exact pairs of pairs, or in other words, each pair of letters can only appear twice in the sentence. $\endgroup$ – VictorHenry Jul 8 '15 at 3:40
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    $\begingroup$ Well, you can still get such pairings by combining words, since all the spaces get removed for evaluation. So something like XX could be solved by having "fox x-ray", for example. $\endgroup$ – VictorHenry Jul 8 '15 at 6:16
  • $\begingroup$ @VictorHenry That is a very good point and you have certainly exposed the weakness inherent in the problem. $\endgroup$ – Engineer Toast Jul 8 '15 at 12:55
  • $\begingroup$ How the hell did you come up with this?! :-o $\endgroup$ – Rand al'Thor Jul 8 '15 at 13:45
  • $\begingroup$ @VictorHenry - If pairs can overlap then you can get a string of length $(2*26^2)+1=1353$ that contains each pair twice. Here is a string of length $(2*3^2)+1=19$ which contains each letter pair twice if the alphabet contains only a, b and c: acbaaabbbcccabcbaca. $\endgroup$ – h34 Jul 8 '15 at 18:00
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59 letters

Sentimentalized sensationalism sensationalized sentimentalisms.

Or, sensationalism that was sentimentalized caused sentimentalisms that were sensationalized.

You could flip it around too, if you wanted. Either way, it's sort of a commentary on our society. =P

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31 letters

Buffalo buffaloes buffalo oboes - boo!

(i.e. "bison from Buffalo, NY, bully certain woodwind instruments - boo!"

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    $\begingroup$ If proper nouns count (Cities) then I have some friends with some very interesting names I'd love to tell you about. $\endgroup$ – KyleMit Jul 7 '15 at 18:28
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My first thought as to the solution would be to find a word that contains numerous words as a subset, so that the subset, when ordered and separated, form a sentence. This is not the only solution, but would yield a solution nonetheless.

The, er, most, at s' Thermostat's!

Alright, it uses inflection (the “s'” meaning “the”) and “thermostats” as a possessive, but hey: it only uses each word once.

It seems to be a response/(slogan-by-a-confused-salesperson); explanation: Well, you can get the most at Thermostat's place.

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84 letters

A saturate sensationally satirical storyline saturates satirically sensational storylines, ass!

(telling someone rather rudely that a storyline that's both saturated and sensationally satirical saturates those that are just satirically sensational).

Similar to Victor Henry's example ... now the longest yet!

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