3/25/2005 07:59:00 PM|||Britt|||Much has been written about Amazon's statistically improbable phrases. Let me add to the pile by announcing I have been thinking about this for years. (Take note companies looking to hire a visionary.)

I have been thinking about this before the internet. In the years when blogs were handwritten in journals, I had a Mead three-subject notebook (5.5" x 9.25") that I blogged in for an audience of one. The back inside cover featured a few handy tools such as a dry measure table, a liquid measure table, twelve one-line spaces for names and phone numbers, and a list of frequently misspelled words, which included the word misspell in case you didn't catch the correct spelling in the title (Frequently Misspelled Words).

One day while staring at this list (you had to stare at something before the internet), I noticed some improbable grouping of words. I started circling the groupings and eventually limited myself to groupings of three words to make it more difficult.

I thought about using the groupings as subject matter for short stories or journal entries. The page has traveled with me, waiting years for blogs to become popular. It can wait no more.

Here is my list of statistically improbable phrases gleaned from a list of Frequently Misspelled Words printed on the inside back cover of a Mead notebook (circa late 1980s, early 1990s).

|||111181109224906999|||Statistically improbable title