Things that are "in"

[Skelly Craig]

(Inspired by this tumblr post.)

Has this been discussed before?: Things that are considered in by Esmé just have “in” in them:

pINstripes

aqueous martINis

herrINg houdINi

fINancial advisor

This might be more of a tendency than a rule, as I remembered at least one exception: parsley soda; However, the latin word for parsley is PetroselINum crispum.

"Orphans" also doesn't have "in" in it, despite being declared as in by Esmé; However this could easily have just been a lie to Jerome in order to start her life of villaINy, after she said that orphans were out at first.

Two more outliers that are considered in, is darkness, at first, and later on, light. Looking at synonymous adjectives of these things, one could say that being caligINous ("dark, dim, or misty") and later being "illumINated" would be in.

What do you think? Does that theory hold any ground? I think it's a neat detail that would fit in Handler's usual wordplay.

[Skelly Craig]

So far the only exception I could find is parsley soda; possibly two more with light/dark. Even just one exception does seem like enough to disprove the theory, though, I admit.

[Dante]

It would be an amazing discovery if true; but I'm not convinced, I'm afraid. The moment you start having to dig deep for ways in which you can possibly insert an "in" into a word or phrase which doesn't contain one on the page is the moment this stops being a theory and starts being fanfiction. I started looking up further exceptions, and indeed found some, but decided not to make a point of it on the grounds that I'm sure you could find a tangentially-related word containing "in" for just about anything if you're really determined.

[Foxy]

I don't know if just because it is a tangent doesn't mean it isn't valid. A lot of the meanings given to Sunny's words toward the end of the series are tangents to what she actually said. But it does seem like a lot of effort for Snicket to have gone to without it being overtly obvious in the words so everyone would notice upon first reading.

[Antenora]

As a lINguist, here is my considered opINion:

I'm quite certaIN that this is nothINg but a coINcidence given that I and N are two of the most common letters IN English text. The substrINg I-N is also the third most common of all two-letter strINgs. (You can test this for yourself by doINg a CTRL-F search on any webpage or document.) Furthermore, the existence of obvious exceptions which must be shoehorned IN by using LatINate synonyms (phonetic IN!) INdicates that this most likely isn't INtentional.

[Hermes]

I am findINg this discussion rather confusINg. I take it we are discussINg the series, since HerrINg HoudINi doesn't appear in the book. But the series is based on the book, and many of the examples come from there. And in the book, many other things are IN - see for instance pages 119 and 120; grapefruits, bright blue cereal bowls, billboards with photographs of weasels on them... automobile tires, cross-country skiINg (OK, that's one), movies with waterfalls IN them, magenta wallpaper, triangular picture frames, very fancy doilies (ha!), garbage cans with letters of the alphabet stencilled all over them...

[Skelly Craig]

Damn, seems I was too swept up by this idea to actually check TEE for other in things; I misremembered that there were only a handful of things declared as in. Oh well.