Thought for Wednesday, Jul 8, 2009

I've been alerted to an event that will take place later this week,
something that happens once and only once over the course of history.
Shortly after noon on July 8, comes the moment that can be called 12:34:56
7/8/9. To mark this momentous event, this week we'll feature words that
have three consecutive letters in order, something that doesn't happen
very often either (there are hundreds of everyday words, but we are
talking here about unusual and interesting words).

It's not exactly true that this sequence of time/date happens only once.
If you follow the day/month/year convention, you can observe the same
sequence next month, on August 7. And even though it appears to be a rare
occurrence, such interesting patterns aren't that unusual. Consider these
from the past:
01:23:45 6/7/89
12:34.56 7/8/90
01:02:03 04/05/06
In a couple of years we'll have 11:11:11 11/11/11. What other unusual
patterns can you think of that are in the near future?

-Anu Garg
A.Word.A.Day
7/5/2009