# A story where every single word begins with 's' **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 5, 2006, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500 "2006-08-05T22:53:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2006, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500/21 "2006-08-06T15:43:42Z")
This reminds me of the incident in the 1980s: Francis X Cline wrote in the New York Times… > [@](#): > > …Out there in…the President’s mountainside retreat, subjects such as the Soviet Union seem to haunt Mr Reagan the way vows to read Proust dog other Americans at leisure… …prompting Geoffry Stokes of the Village Voice to opine… > [@](#): > > This may be the only time in history in which the words “Mr Reagan” and “read Proust” will appear in the same sentence. …which spurred humorist Veronica Geng to write a brief story for the New Yorker in which those phrases appear in _every_ sentence. I’ve found a brief passage online… > [@](#): > > I glanced over at the dame sleeping next to me, and all of a sudden I wanted some other dame, the way you see Mr Reagan on TV and all of a sudden get a yen to read Proust. Not that she wasn’t attractive, with rumpled blond curls and a complexion so transparent you could read Proust through it… It was taking her a little more time to wake up than it would take Mr. Reagan’s horse to read Proust. After I’d showered and shaved and put on an old pair of pants that wouldn’t lead anyone to believe my tailor was unduly influenced by having read Proust, I went back over to the bed, where I wasn’t exactly planning to say my prayers - Mr Reagan or no Mr Reagan. > > “Mr… Reagan…?” she whispered, fluttering her lashes, and I trusted the dazed quizzical act about as much as if she’d told me she could read Proust without moving her lips… And discovered that Geng’s work, including the story, has been collected in a book called [Love Trouble](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0395945577/104-4328211-7041538?v=glance&n=283155) ---
**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500/22 "2006-08-07T22:43:35Z")
[this](http://www.areasofunrest.net/39/23Nov97.html) I googled “story ‘every word’ ‘starts with s’” and got ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500/23 "2006-08-07T23:34:26Z")
Is there a word for this kind of composition? A [lipogram](http://phrontistery.info/liporigins.html) is “a composition that does not contain a certain letter or letters”, but is there an assigned term for this? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500/24 "2006-08-08T04:51:15Z")
Such is my luck today, I couldn’t find such a story for you. ---
**Author:** ![Caffeine\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/48db29/32.png) [@Caffeine\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine_Cat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500/25 "2006-08-08T07:55:12Z")
[QUOTE=robardin] In the English translation of Stanislaw Lem’s _The Cyberiad_, a computer is created that is designed to be the best writer ever, and is asked (as an intended stumper) to come up with a poem “…about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism and in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s!!”. Even before its creator can finish protesting that this is an absurd request, it produces: I’ve always wondered what the poem/problem was in the original Polish! [/QUOTE] Heh, it is with “c” in Polish. It’s a cyberotic story about love and treachery, music, blacks, nobles, bad luck and incest. It goes along this lines: [QUOTE=Stanislaw Lem] Cyprian cyberotoman, cynik, ceniąc czule Czarnej córy cesarskiej cud ciemnego ciała, Ciągle cytrą czarował. Czerwieniała cała, Cicha, co dzień czekała, cierpiała, czuwała… …Cyprian ciotkę całuje, cisnąwszy czarnulę!! [/quote] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-story-where-every-single-word-begins-with-s/367500.md?page=1)