Nat Torkington wrote a fun bit on SIP Chains on Amazon -- Statistically Improbably Phrases that Amazon started publishing a couple weeks back. This is terribly fun. There is only one SIP for Oryx and Crake, which I just finished reading last night: fridge magnets.

Someone asked in some forum or comments section somewhere why Moby Dick didn't have "the whiteness of the whale" as a statistically improbable phrase, and my guess is that either it only occurs once in that exact phrase in the book or that the phrase itself, made famous by Moby Dick, is now used in so many other books it's now more statistically probable. The latter seems more likely to me.

Blood Meridian's SIPs, kid didnt, didnt answer, kid spat, second corporal, aint nothin, spat into the fire manages to stage a whole laconic scene. (And in the first review, there is the phrase "the whiteness of the whale.")

LINK | 11:05 AM | TB

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