Fun with SIPs [S. Worthen

Playing with Amazon's Statistically Improbably Phrase (SIP) function yields all sorts of felicitous phrases. (I admit to wondering what SIPs various dictionaries, thesauruses, cookbooks, and guide books would yield, but have thus far searched unfruitfully for any of those kinds of volumes.) The phrases tend to be more entertaining with non-fiction, and more revealing with fiction.

Except for series of books set in the same world, many of you should be able to identify which book these SIPs are from on sight. I have not in the least tried for obscurity and I've erred on the side of these being books I've frequently mentioned at various points in the past.

fire lizard eggs, nine fire lizards, fire lizard queen, little fire lizards, fellis juice, kitchen cavern, bronze rider, queen egg, little queen
plasma rifle, sweet madness, green sedan, motorway services
turnip face, scarlet suit, square knob, moving castle, fire demon, caterpillar green, broom cupboard, her stick, harbor wall, league boots
new manservant, madhouse attendants, fairy roads, practical magician, nameless slave, fairy servants, school for magicians, little surprized, four hundred guineas, little stone figure, two magicians, packhorse bridge, new magicians, moss oak, chalk road, much surprized, magical history, country servants, century magician, her ladyship, magic done, second shall, great surprize, fairy spirits, other magicians
shepherding hut, curse nets, pink rhinoceros, her pointy hat, pig trick, got tae, older witches, third wish
soldier with the green whiskers, four travellers, stuffed man, silver shoes, green girl
inner cliff face, papal corruption, watery vapors, celestial horizon, fiery vapors, dry vapors, mortal understanding, heavenly souls, first ledge, final pit, cannot plumb

And lastly, a more obscure set, just for one particular person who might be reading this: "blank charters, mine honor, base court, thy state".

Update: If you want to guess at these, feel free! Just don't look at the existing comments first.

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Huh. I've got 1, 3, 5 and 6, but not or 7 and 4, I've got a couple of guesses for. Should we go ahead and guess here? :)

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Go for it. I considered screening comments or making this a poll, but I don't care enough about the competition to do it that way. Anyone who wants to compete honestly should be able to do so by commenting directly on the post and not reading comments first.

You've been too busy to read 4 and 7 is from a somewhat different time and place than all of the others.

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All I've got is #1, some Pern book; #3, Howl's Moving Castle; and #6, The Wizard of Oz.

1. A Pern novel.

4. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; "nameless strange" was the tipoff.
(Note: I haven't yet read more than a fraction of that book.)

5 Something by Terry Pratchett?

7 Either Dante's "The Inferno" or a modern prose knock-off.

5 Something by Terry Pratchett?

Wee Free Men!

1. Pern!
2. Is this Jasper Fforde?
3. Howl's Moving Castle.
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (mistitling corrected, I always do that)
5. No clue :( - but on edit, see above for guess!
6. Oz
7. No clue again :(

Lots of yes!

5. You are SO close. Which gives away exactly which book it is.

1. Any Pern book - "Dragonsong" p'raps
2. I don't know and have no guesses.
3. "Howl's Moving Castle"
4. This one has echoes of Chrestomanci to it, but that doesn't match with what you said in your prior response. Will have to read other comments I presume. ;)

5. Discworld. "Wyrd Sisters" ?
6. Oz. I forget which volume though. Is that "Ozma of Oz"? It's been too long since I re-read them.
7. Meh.

I was sorely tempted to use one of the Oz books further along in the series, but I know so many people who don't realize that there's more than one Oz book in the world - so I resisted.

Here are the SIPs for Ozma of Oz: yellow hen, magic belt, copper man, little monarch, dinner pail

1. Dragonsong exactly. Not to be confused with, say, a book whose SIPs are "fire lizard song, your fire lizards, nine fire lizards, that the fire lizards, other fire lizards, fire lizard eggs, fire lizard queen, bubbly pies, journeyman harper, watch dragon, fire heights, sleeping furs, gather day, little queen, occasional music"

2. Lots of people in the ballpark, no one is quite there yet.

3. Of course. The phrase "moving castle" is quite a giveaway, even if you hadn't read the book or seen the movie.

4. The other comments know what they're talking about.

5. Very good guess. You're on the right trail and the right sequence within the Discworld books too. Wyrd Systers would be a whole lot harder to identify, however, since its only listed SIPs are "apple seller, own dagger" - would you have gotten it from that? The actual book is rather recent, so you might not have read it yet. No one's quite got it yet, but you are very close and

mirrorshard is even closer.

6. See my other comment. Several people have this one right. The original Oz book.

7. is a book from a very different time and place than all of the others. It's from Dante.

Nope, haven't read any new Pratchett since "Soul Music".

I really should read those Fforde books. T recommended them to me and I've yet to dip my toe in that pool.

Not to be confused with, say, a book whose SIPs are "fire lizard song, your fire lizards, nine fire lizards, that the fire lizards, other fire lizards, fire lizard eggs, fire lizard queen, bubbly pies, journeyman harper, watch dragon, fire heights, sleeping furs, gather day, little queen, occasional music"

Because that, of course, would be Dragonsinger. TOTALLY different... :P

Precisely.

the last one isn't richard II, is it?

It is indeed.

the blank charters are a dead giveaway...

To the best of my knowledge, passionate Shakespeare readers are a minority among people who read what I write - so I figured fewer people would get it - especially since the phrases don't provide a whole lot of world-building, the way some of the other sets do.

I actually get most of my richard II from the historical literature, although I do enjoy shakespeare's play. I figured he's the only king treated by shakespeare who had a big controversy about blank charters...

Oh -cool-. I haven't read that one, but "Richard III" aye.

Interesting.

We use a measure when comparing two items to see how similar they are.

TF-IDF: Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency

i.e. if you've got two documents with a lot of similar terms in that don't tend to appear anywhere else then its a good bet that the two documents are on the same subject.

Ooooh.... that brings back memories of my final year project...

Damn! I wish I'd seen this earlier -- I'd have got many of them, but not the last two, nor the Wee Free Men -- the only Pratchett I've not read (not counting the latest).

You didn't have to look at everyone else's answers! If you hadn't, you could have guessed honestly.

Really, the last one is there is a gift to medievalists. But it's a big time period. I haven't read Gawain after all.

I hit the button to answer before remembering that I'd see everybody else's!

And the last one? YOu know, I was all over a Dan Brown book for that. Clearly my head is not where it should be. Too many job applications and an unemployment appeal, not to mention marking midterms. I'll be blogging my faves later -- including the excuses for why people who didn't show up on the day deserve a second chance ...

IANAM (though I have read the Divine Comedy in translation) but I was a bit thrown off by the presence of words from the scholarly apparatus -- I don't think Dante actually used the words "papal corruption".

Wait, is the last one one of those Philip Pullman books?

If it were, it would have words like "goose daemon, parley room, witch consul, anbaric light, gyptian boat, coal silk, fire hurler, his daemon, her daemon, armored bears, coal spirit, your daemon, symbol reader, golden monkey, wolfskin coat, combat ground".

Or perhaps "lodestone resonator, cliff ghasts, adamant tower, monkey daemon, ask the alethiometer, his daemon, golden monkey, shadow particles, two daemons, subtle knife, your daemons, other daemon, blue hawk, her rucksack, wheel trees, his rucksack"

Good guess though. Appropriate.

Despite the disproportionate number of words from the Inferno, it's from a translation of the whole Divine Comedy.

I only got "Howl's Moving Castle", and that's because "moving castle" is a bit of a giveaway, isn't it?. I am rubbish!

1. Pern
2. Jasper Fforde I think
3. Howl's Moving Castle
4. Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrel (and what a lon list that produces...)
5-7 No idea!

OK, as you've asked elsewhere for a bit more detail on 2, I'd go for "The Eyre Affair"

And you're right. Tragically, the sequels don't seem to have SIPs. A real loss.

heh, I only know two.

1.) Anne McCaffery, any of her Dragonrider of Pern books and
3.) Howl's Moving Castle

Just because they're books I've read a number of times, doesn't mean they're books everyone else I know has read a number of times. But they should have. Well. I recommend them anyways.

S. Worthen | Weblog

Fun with SIPs

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October