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An autogram (Greek: αὐτός = self, γράμμα = letter) is a sentence that describes itself in the sense of providing an inventory of its own characters. They were invented by Lee Sallows, who also coined the word ''autogram''.〔 An essential feature is the use of full cardinal number names such as “one”, “two”, etc., in recording character counts. Autograms are also called ‘self-enumerating’ or ‘self-documenting’ sentences. Often, letter counts only are recorded while punctuation signs are ignored, as in this example: :This sentence employs two a’s, two c’s, two d’s, twenty-eight e’s, five f’s, three g’s, eight h’s, eleven i’s, three l’s, two m’s, thirteen n’s, nine o’s, two p’s, five r’s, twenty-five s’s, twenty-three t’s, six v’s, ten w’s, two x’s, five y’s, and one z. The first autogram to be published was composed by Sallows in 1982 and appeared in Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" column in ''Scientific American''.〔Hofstadter, D.R. “Metamagical Themas” Scientific American, January 1982, pp 12–17〕 :Only the fool would take trouble to verify that his sentence was composed of ten a’s, three b’s, four c’s, four d’s, forty-six e’s, sixteen f’s, four g’s, thirteen h’s, fifteen i’s, two k’s, nine l’s, four m’s, twenty-five n’s, twenty-four o’s, five p’s, sixteen r’s, forty-one s’s, thirty-seven t’s, ten u’s, eight v’s, eight w’s, four x’s, eleven y’s, twenty-seven commas, twenty-three apostrophes, seven hyphens and, last but not least, a single ! The task of producing an autogram is perplexing because the object to be described cannot be known until its description is first complete.〔Hofstadter, D.R., ''Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern'', 1996, p. 390–92, Basic Books, ISBN 978-0-465-04566-2〕〔Letaw J.R. Pangrams: A Nondeterministic Approach, ''Abacus'', Vol 2, No 3, Spring 1985, pp 42–47〕 ==Self-enumerating pangrams== A type of autogram that has attracted special interest is the autogramic pangram, a self-enumerating sentence in which every letter of the alphabet occurs at least once.〔(Encyclopedia of Science: self-enumerating sentence )〕 Certain letters do not appear in either of the two autograms above, which are therefore not pangrams. The first ever self-enumerating pangram appeared in a Dutch newspaper and was composed by Rudy Kousbroek.〔Kousbroek, R., “Welke Vraag Heeft Vierendertig Letters?” NRC Handelsblad, Cultureel Supplement 640, 11 Feb. 1983, p.3.〕〔Kousbroek, R. “Instructies Voor Het Demonteren Van Een Bom,” NRC Handelsblad, Cultereel Supplement 644, 11 March 1983, p.9.〕〔Kousbroek, R. “De Logologische Ruimte” Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1984, pp 135–53.〕 Sallows, who lives in the Netherlands, was challenged by Kousbroek to produce a self-enumerating ‘translation’ of this pangram into English—an impossible-seeming task. This prompted Sallows to construct an electronic Pangram Machine.〔(Sallows, L., In Quest of a Pangram, Abacus, Vol 2, No 3, Spring 1985, pp 22–40 )〕 Eventually the machine succeeded, producing the example below which was published in Scientific American in October 1984:〔Dewdney, A.K. “Computer Recreations” Scientific American, October 1984, pp 18–22〕 :This pangram contains four as, one b, two cs, one d, thirty es, six fs, five gs, seven hs, eleven is, one j, one k, two ls, two ms, eighteen ns, fifteen os, two ps, one q, five rs, twenty-seven ss, eighteen ts, two us, seven vs, eight ws, two xs, three ys, & one z. Sallows wondered if one could produce a pangram that counts its letters as percentages of the whole sentence–a particularly difficult task since such percentages usually won't be exact integers. He mentioned the problem to British computer scientist Chris Patuzzo and in late 2015 Patuzzo produced the following solution:〔(A New Pangram ) Futility Closet, November 16, 2015〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Autogram」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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