Breath. Air is light, but even Stig Severinsen, the world record holder can only hold his breath for 22 minutes. The world’s strongest man can’t beat that, but you can have the pleasure of telling him to his face.
A one way street sign. It tells you the correct way to go, is black and white (in the United States), going the wrong way can get you a citation and the sign only has two words on it.
Imagine an HIV test that is 95% accurate (false positive rate of 5%) and around 2% of the tested population is infected with HIV. What is the probability that you actually have HIV when your test comes back positive?
My days are in the summer When you’ll eat me when I’m hot In fact I’ll even eat myself Where battles tough are fought But when you find me in a fight ‘Twill be high in the sky And if you catch me napping I suggest you let me lie When you’re bad come to my house From Ma get thoughts profound Am I big or am I small? Some say I’m just a pound.
The typical answer to this is “I am,” but some argue that it’s not a complete sentence. However, if someone asked a man named Rupert if he was Rupert, he could reply, “I am” and it would make a complete sentence in my book.
But that’s not the whole answer. There is an even shorter sentence using an imperative with an implied subject (how’s that for an English terminology-filled sentence?) With “Go,” the “you” is implied. For example, if your wife wanted you to go with her to pick up some donuts and you were busy, she might say, “I really want to get some donuts, I’m starving!” and you might reply, “Go!” The implication being you never wanted to get donuts in the first place because you like ice cream more anyway and if you’re busy you’re probably doing something worthwhile and important and can’t be disturbed for such trivial matters as acquiring sweet pastries with holes in them, no matter how much of a waste of time your wife says your pursuits are. In short, “Go” is the shortest sentence in the English language that also has the longest implied meaning. Do you want to get get some ice cream? Go!
Ava pointed out in the comments that No is another viable alternative.
