LINGUIST List 3.450  Tue 02 Jun 1992   Editor for this issue: <>
1. "j.a.rea", OULIPO  Message 1: OULIPO  Date: Sat, 23 May 92
19:38:30 ESOULIPO From: "j.a.rea" <> Subject: OULIPO  OU.LI.PO
is (was) a (real? virtual? imaginary?) organization, the acronym
standing for Ouvroir de la Litterature Potencielle, 'Workshop of
Potential Literature.' One place for more information is a paper
presented by Raymond Queneau at the 'Seminar on quantitative
linguistics' on 29 January 1964, and reprinted in the collection
of Queneau's essays _Batons, Chiffres et lettres_, pp317-45
(Paris: Gallimard 1965). "Potential" literature is created by
"rules" or, if you will, "processes".  Write a novel without
using the letter 'e' (sound familiar?), as did Ernest Wright
(_Gadsby_, 1939 (267pp)). Take a poem, keep all the vowel
phonemes intact, but rewrite it with different consonants (hence
different words, of course). Write a story, and then replace
every noun in it by going to the dictionary and substituting the
seventh noun lis