Prisoner's constraint¶
prisoners_constraint · letter · validated
A text using no letter with an ascender or a descender, as though saving paper.
Provenance¶
- Source: Georges Perec, in Oulipo, Atlas de littérature potentielle (1981)
- Attribution:
primary— a named author, work and year this catalogue stands behind - Checkability:
self— decidable from the text and its parameters alone - Attested:
author-stated— the originator set this rule down
Details¶
- Kind: restrictive
- Languages: en, de, fr
- Requires:
letter_shapes - Deterministic: yes
- In other languages: Gefangenenbeschränkung (de), Contrainte du prisonnier (fr)
Notes¶
tokens and fold_diacritics are removed: _check scans enumerate(text) directly rather than through word_spans, and calls pack.exceeds_x_height on each raw character, never pack.fold_diacritics — folding first would be wrong here, not merely unused, since a stripped diacritic mark is exactly what exceeds_x_height needs to see to catch a letter like ä.
Prompt hint¶
Write using only letters that stay within the x-height — avoid b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t and y.
Examples¶
within-x-height¶
en — this text satisfies the procedure.
no one saw our man swim across, nor came near
Source: constructed example; the constraint is Perec's, in Oulipo, Atlas (1981)
ordinary-prose¶
en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
the tall dog leapt
Source: constructed counterexample
innerhalb-der-x-hoehe¶
de — this text satisfies the procedure.
Wir waren immer nur am Meer
Source: constructed example
eszett-bricht-die-x-hoehe¶
de — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
Maße
Source: constructed counterexample; Masse passes where Maße does not
umlaut-bricht-die-x-hoehe¶
de — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
Mädchen
Source: constructed counterexample
dans-la-hauteur-d-x¶
fr — this text satisfies the procedure.
on s'ennuie sur nos murs
Source: constructed example; the constraint is Perec's, in Oulipo, Atlas (1981)
prose-ordinaire¶
fr — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
la tour penche
Source: constructed counterexample