this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 51 points 1 day ago (4 children)

You joke, but I bet you didn't know that Connecticut contained a "d"

I wonder what other words contain letters we don't know about.

[–] Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 day ago (4 children)

The famous 'invisible D' of Connecticut, my favorite SCP.

[–] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 1 day ago

That actually sounds like a fun SCP - a word that doesn't seem to contain a letter, but when testing for the presence of that letter using an algorithm that exclusively checks for that presence, it reports the letter is indeed present. Any attempt to check where in the word the letter is, or to get a list of all letters in that word, spuriously fail. Containment could be fun, probably involving amnestics and widespread societal influence, I also wonder if they could create an algorithm for checking letter presence that can be performed by hand without leaking any other information to the person performing it, reproducing the anomaly without computers.

[–] iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

ct -> d is a not-uncommon OCR fuck up. Maybe that's the source of it's garbage data?

[–] leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

No, LLMs produce the most statistically likely (in their training data) token to follow a certain list of tokens (there's nothing remotely resembling reasoning going on in there, it's pure hard statistics, with some error and randomness thrown in), and there are probably a lot more lists where Colorado is followed by Connecticut than ones where it's followed by Delaware, so they're obviously going to be more likely to produce the former.

Moreover, there aren't going to be many texts listing the spelling of states (maybe transcripts of spelling bees?), so that information is unlikely to be in their training data, and they can't extrapolate because it's not really something they do and because they use words or parts of words as tokens, not letters, so they literally have no way of listing the letters of a word if said list is not in their training data (and, again, that's not something we tend to write, and if we did we wouldn't include d in Connecticut even if we were reading a misprint). Same with counting how many letters a word has, and stuff like that.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

SCP-00WTFDoC (lovingly called "where's the fucking D of Connecticut" by the foundation workers, also "what the fuck, doc?")

People think it's safe, because it's "just an invisible D", not even a dick, just the letter D, and it only manifests verbally when someone tries to say "connecticut" or write it down. When you least expect it, everyone heard "Donnedtidut", everyone read that thing and a portal to that fucking place opens and drags you in.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Words are full of mystery! Besides the invisible D, Connecticut has that inaudible C...

[–] Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 hours ago

I hear the Invisible D and Silent C are happily married.

[–] jaupsinluggies@feddit.uk 4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

The d in Connecticut is between the e and the i. They don't connect because it was cut.

[–] Uruanna@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

Connecticut is Jewish?

[–] villainy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Every American I know does pronounce it like Connedicut 🤔

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Really? Everyone I know calls it kinetic-cut. But I group up in new england.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

"Kinetic" with a hard "T" like posh Brit is saying it to the queen? Everyone I've ever heard speaking US English pronounces it with a rolled "t" like "kinedic" so the alternate pronunciation still reads like it'd have a "d" sound

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

This phenomenon is called "T flapping" and it is common in North American English. I got into an argument with my dad who insisted he pronounces the T's in 'butter' when his dialect, like nearly all North Americans pronounces the word as 'budder'.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

budder is softer than t flapping. further forward with the tongue on the palate.

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It's an approximation, but the t is partially vocalized giving it a 'd' sound even if it's not made exactly the same way.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

i just thought we were getting technical about the linguistics. i got and use both words frequently, thought the distinction might be appreciated. the difference is so subtle we sometimes have to ask each other which one we're referring to. i'm willing to bet it shows up more on my face than in my voice.

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I appreciate the discussion, I get out of my depth pretty quickly on the topic being a linguistic hobbyist rather than someone with actual education and background.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago

That's how I've always heard it pronounced on the rare occasions anybody ever mentions it. But I've never been to that part of the US so maybe the accents different there?

[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Aneb@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

I was going to make a joke if you're from connedicut you never pronounce first d in the word. Conne-icut