cockeyed.com/lessons/viagra/viagra.html
When electronic mail was first developed, it was devised for one purpose, and one purpose only: To peddle pills of Viagra. Because internet marketers love teaching others about medicine and the alphabet, the word Viagra is always spelled in hot, new, creative ways. For example, it might have a lower case L in the space where a capital I would go, or perhaps an symbol where the letter a should be. After I received 80,730 different emails trying to sell viagra, I started to wonder: How many different ways are there to spell Viagra ? I began my quest by simply collecting the Viagra spellings that showed up in my email. Two techniques were used: One letter substitutions Extra characters included inside the word One letter substitutions I know three different ways to portray the letter V. If the name of Pfizers product was simply V, there would only be three ways to spell the name: V, v and /. If it was called VI, the name could be spelled with any V and any of the 12 forms of the I . All kinds of stuff can substitute for an I, including a number one, a vertical bar and a colon. Multiply the variations of V 3 by the variations of I 12 to get total number of variations: 36. VI, Vi, V1, Vl, V, V, V, V:, V, V, V, V, vI, vi, v1, vl, v, v, v, v:, v, v, v, v, /I, /i, /1, /l, /, /, /, /:, /, /, /, and /.
Using this variety of characters, in different combinations, there are 62,424 3 x 12 x 17 x 2 x 3 x 17 ways to portray the name Viagra. Extra characters included inside the word Here is where it gets crazy. The word Viagra can be recognized even with a few extra characters interspersed among the letters of the word: Some actual examples Ive been emailed are in the orange table below: Viagorea.
If any of these 192 characters can be used, in any combination, between the letters V I A G R and A, there are an astronomical number of combinations. Not every combination leaves viagra as a discernable, legible word. The varieties of extra characters in between the letters is equal to 192 x 192 x 192 x 192 x 192 x 192 x 192, or 9,618,527,719,784,448. Combined with the One Letter Substitution technique, there are even more variations. Just multiply the number of variations for each letter position: 192 x 3 x 192 x 12 x 192 x 17 x 192 x 2 x 192 x 3 x 192 x 17 x 192 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 !
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z _ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Six hundred quintillion variations! There are some characters that were left out of the One Letter Substitution technique: Greg Knauss wrote and showed me how the G can be portrayed with a 6 , Ryan Hill alerted me to the I -ness of an exclamation mark. These three additions change the first equation to 313174317 variations, and boost the second equation to 192 x 3 x 192 x 13 x 192 x 17 x 192 x 4 x 192 x 3 x 192 x 17 x 192 1,300,925,111,156,286,160,896. Thanks Greg, Ryan and SR, you helped push the total into the SEXTILLIONS! Home Contact Rob How Much is Inside Pranks Incredible Stuff Science Club April 7, 2004 .
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