A tax•on•o•my
Currently: Threads: 315,417, Posts: 6,720,002, Members: 63,028
How many paragraphs, sentences, words, letters and punctuation marks are there? How many question marks? How many marks?
Let’s guess there is an average of two paragraph per post, three sentences per paragraph, eight words per sentence, four letters per word and four quotation marks per sentence.
That makes:
4 letters per word X 8 words per sentence= 32 letters per sentence
32 letters X 3 sentences= 69 letters per paragraph
69 letters X 2 paragraphs = 138 letters per post
Plus: 4 quotation marks per sentence X 3 sentences = 12 quotation marks per post
138 letters + 12 quotation marks = 150 marks per post.
6,720,002 posts X 150 marks per post = 1,008,000,300 marks
Of the 12 quotation marks per post let’s say there are eight periods.
8 periods per post X 6,720,002 = 53,760,016 periods.
138 letters per post X 6,720,002 posts = 927,360,276 letters
Via wikipedia:
a is used 8.167% X 927,360,276 = 7,573,751.24342
Rounded off = 7,573,751 a’s here on straight dope… and counting
7,573,751 a’s divided by 63, 028 members = 120.1648632….
120 a’s per poster.
Though, of course, some members have produced no a’s, some many more then 120 a’s.
…
1,008,000,300 marks since 1973, 34 years = 29,647,068 marks per year.
29,647,068 marks / 365 days = 81,224.8438…
81,225 marks per day.
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I don’t find those numbers implausible, really - I’d say that’s longer than my average post, but then again, some long GD posts will balance that out. I was just thinking about how many words I’ve posted over the years. I never would have imagined it was so close to a million, but sure enough, 48.8 words per post would equal one million words in 20,475 posts.