This may be a duplicate, as I first learned of it here. Still, I'm looking for a text where people only get to speak approximately 100 words, presumably before they're mute. I want to specify that it isn't a limited range of vocabulary, something that I think was stressed heavily within the text, where simple words had greater impacts on others. The text was likely a short story, maybe set in the 1990s, I think the setting was an apartment, and I'm reasonably certain that a major plot point was that someone with only 17 words left used a word or two on their partner, saying something simple.
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Is this scifi? Seems like general censorship / government dystopia rather than anything fantastical or futuristic.– Roddy of the Frozen Peasyesterday
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2Not enough of a match to post it, especially when there's already an accepted answer, but All Rights Reserved has some similar themes, in a future society where almost all words have been copyrighted, so people are stingy with speech because speaking is expensive.– FuzzyBootsyesterday
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Also possibly scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/233930/…– FuzzyBootsyesterday
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2Hilariously, there's an Eddie Murphy film called 1,000 Words where he is cursed/tested to only be able to say 1,000 words before he (believes he) will die.– VBartilucci20 hours ago
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3 Answers
This sounds somewhat like the poem The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel, available here. Though in the poem, it's 167 words per day.
This doesn't quite match the specifics of your description, but there is a 2015 fringe play by Sam Steiner called 'Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons' (which was recently revived in the West End), with the premise that a law restricts people from saying more than 140 words each day.
It's a two-hander, showing a couple trying to communicate within this limit.
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1Thank you so much for this! Although I can't find any mention of the play on stack, the lines about wasting words and unequal usage reserved for each other ring a bell. I may have gotten the specifics mixed up with a movie (Chungking Express) which I felt had similar vibes. yesterday
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@JoJi'sBizarreAdventure No problem. Yes I couldn't find that much on the Sam Steiner play online in general; there was a New York Times review I think. yesterday
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hmm... I wonder if 140 words was any sort of hat-tip toward the original restriction on text messages being 140 characters.– FreeMan23 hours ago
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1Correction to my earlier comment, it was The Quiet World, as suggested by @sneftel, but I still can't find it posted here. Sorry for incorrectly marking your answer as the correct one, but this is still interesting nonetheless. Thanks for posting it anyway. 4 hours ago
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The short film “1500 Words” directed by Andrew Chaplin, and available on YouTube.
A man is informed by his doctor that he only has 1500 words left to live. The man goes into a hysterical outburst, using up 1450 of his remaining words, and is sent home to live out his remaining days with his wife.
He uses as few words as possible from then on, “gifting” his wife (who is unaware of his plight) with the occasional unusual word as a sign of affection.
He dies immediately after using up his last word.
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The OP has already marked Paul D. Waite's answer of "Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons" as accepted, as denoted by the green tick next to that answer. 9 hours ago
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I appreciate the honorable mention of an associated story, but this might have been better as a comment under the question. You'll be able to post those when you've sufficient reputation. 9 hours ago
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1I reckon alternative answers can be useful — someone else might be trying to find 1500 Words in future, and find it here. Turns out my answer wasn't actually correct after all. 2 hours ago
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Comments are intended to improve questions and answers, they're not a place for answers @JiminyCricket. Answers should always be posted as answers. I often have to ask people to re-write a comment as an answer so the contribution can be rewarded. Arguably, this answer is still a closer fit to the original description than either of the other two current answers (total limit rather than daily limit), and the fact that another answer has already been accepted should never be a deterrent to another answer being posted. The question asker can always change their mind, as indeed they did here. 26 mins ago