Oulipo was a rather fascinating literary movement originating in France that focused on so-called "constrained writing" techniques. The most famous example is Georges Perec's 3pp-page novel A Void, which is lippogrammatic for (excluding) the letter E entirely. It's harder than it sounds. Other examples include palindromes (something that reads the same backwards and forwards), univocalisms (when words have only one vowel), and snowball poems (where each word is a letter longer). All of this is particularly fascinating to me, especially as someone who's failed at making a lot of Oulipo poems. Even more fascinating is the word's etymology - Oulipo is an acronym of the phrase Ouvroir de litterature potentiell, which, roughly translated, means "workshop of potential literature" in French.
Adam Aleksic is a 221-month-old, 2800-ounce high school senior with disturbing interests in etymology, vexillology, geography, board games, limericks, and law. Adam will be studying linguistics at Harvard University in the fall.
The Etymology Nerd