Yet another annoying USAn here. I am only but recently introduced to TN -- FIRST AMONG SEQUELS, in specific -- and I rather suspect that TN is the sort of thing for which the phrase "gloriously mad" was invented...
Anywho: Having just finished FIRST AMONG SEQUELS, I had an idea about the Textual Sieve's nature/composition.
I think the Textual Sieve is, itself, made of raw text. Everything in the BookWorld is made of text, of course, but the true, innate, "texty-ness" is generally not at all evident; veiled, one might say. That is to say, under normal circumstances, text becomes invisible when it's assembled into a person or chair or whatever else. So I think some unsung BookWorld genius managed to find a way to work with text *directly*, rather than through the intermediary of whatever stuff text assembles itself into, and the present-day Textual Sieve is a highly-advanced outgrowth of that pioneering work. Given that text is as fundamental to the BookWorld as atoms are to the Outland, I'd be willing to bet that "raw text" engineering can be every bit as powerful, and as dangerous, as nuclear engineering…
If it should ever be considered desirable to provide a visual depiction of the Textual Sieve, I recommend that said depiction be based on regex (regular expressions), a form of computer code which happens to be a compact, powerful, and notoriously cryptic means of describing patterns in text. If the Sieve is depicted as a set of regex listings, it would provide something for the punters to look at while, at the same time, preserving the Sieve's incomprehensible mysteriousnessitude.

.....and do not under any circumstances try to break a letter down into its constituent component. At least not without first preparing yourself a bunker built from lead-bound copies of the shorter OED or greater. Websters will not do for this task, although you could try it if you reinforce the Websters with Roget.

Welcome, by the way. pies are available in Nextian, and there is a possibility that there is still some traces of cake and chocolate. I have not seen the drinks trolley in a while, though, so you may want to bring your own.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2009 11:53AM by SkidMarks.

<applauds> Although our Mr, Fforde normally is reluctant to fill in the explanatory gaps he left intentionally, in this case I think he could make an exeption: The idea would be worth to be developed further in one of the Next books.

(Imagine Colonell Bradshaw struggling with the number of closing square brackets to programm his textual sieve in an attempt to contain a widow line virus...)