@msh210 @MonicaCellio @DoubleAA @IsaacMoses I think the fact that the previous word is also eileh is a good cue for people to jump in

For interested parties and future reference: cal1.cn.huc.edu/oneentry.php?lemma=q%29%20X&cits=all

Why is "שֶׁלַּפֶּסַח" one word? mechon-mamre.org/i/3510.htm

@Argon Same reason שלשמה is. It's in Hebrew.

Also שלחנוכה he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%A9:Dovi/…

@DoubleAA Interesting. Can any proper noun be made into a compound word like this? If so, is it what are the vocalization rules (I see שֶׁלִּשְׁלֹמֹ֔ה but שֶׁלַּפֶּסַח)?

In particular, I wonder what happens with a noun that starts with אהחע״ר; is there a compensatory lengthening?

@Argon I'd think of it more as a prefix than a compound word. Like כ from כמו.

@DoubleAA Here's is what I found in the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language & Linguistics (Possession: Pre-Modern Hebrew):

""In post-Biblical Hebrew use of the independent genitive marker שֶׁל šel ‘of’ became common, e.g., סדין שׁל בוץ sadin šel buṣ ‘a sheet of fine linen’ (Mishna Yoma 3.4) (The evidence from Qumran Hebrew is inconsistent and will not be reviewed here).

This particle’s origins can be traced to Classical Hebrew -אֲשֶׁר לְ ʾăšεr lə- > Late Biblical Hebrew -שֶׁלְּ šεl-lə-, e.g., מִטָּתוֹ֙ שֶׁלִּשְׁלֹמֹ֔ה miṭṭå̄ṯō šεl-li-šlomo ‘Solomon’s bed’ (Song 3.7), or כַּרְמִ֥י שֶׁלִּ֖י karmī šεllī ‘my own vineyard’ (Song 1.6) > post Biblical Hebrew שֶׁל šel. The particle is attested as an independent genitive marker as well as a dependent one in early manuscripts (Azar 1995:204). The construct is also commonly used in post-Biblical Hebrew (Azar 1995:198–209)"

Under "Construct State and Possessive Constructions: Rabbinic Hebrew" they add further:

"The basic possessive construct, without שֶׁל šel, is commonly used when the nomen regens consists of a single word. When it is a noun phrase itself, consisting of a noun and an adjective, or of an independent possessive phrase, it is followed by שֶׁל šel, for example ערב יום טוב הראשון שלפסח ʿereḇ yom ṭoḇ ha-rišon šel-lap-pesaḥ ‘eve of the first festival day of Passover’ (Mishna Maʿaser Sheni 5.6);

יום טוב הראשון yom ṭoḇ ha-rišon ‘the first festival day’ is a three-word phrase that serves as nomen regens, and therefore its nomen rectum, פסח pesaḥ ‘Passover’, is preceded by שֶׁל šel. "

@magicker72 Thanks.

@Argon And thanks.

@Scimonster "To state the obvious, Chad Gadya belongs in the complexity class of the famous "Läuschen und Flöhchen" tale..." -- well, obvious to some, maybe. :-)

I can reason about what a complexity class is, but I have no idea what about it makes it O(sqrt n) -- or O(anything else), for that matter! Fascinating.

@Scimonster I beat you. :-)

@msh210 Well, maybe.

@Scimonster Well, can it be left off? In Perl it can -- on the machines I use.

@msh210 At least on my computer it can't be, but it can be reduced. Now i'm only one byte behind you.

@Scimonster Does = compare in Python, or do you need ==? If = compares, I imagine you can switch your i!=7 to i=7 and reverse the logic there to save a byte.

@msh210 No, = sets.

@Scimonster Yeah, I thought maybe it does both. Like in SQL. Oh, well.

@msh210 That would violate the Zen of Python in so many ways.

@Scimonster Aha! You can reduce it further:

> To aid with platforms such as Windows, which add Unicode BOM marks to the beginning of Unicode files, the UTF-8 signature '\xef\xbb\xbf' will be interpreted as 'utf-8' encoding as well (even if no magic encoding comment is given).

(Untested, of course.)

@Scimonster Perl may be all about "do what I mean", but not even Perl stoops so low as to allow = for comparison. (Heck, it doesn't even allow == for string comparison. Does Python?)

@msh210 How do you do string comparison then?

@Scimonster eq

@msh210 Hm. Python uses == for lots of comparisons.

@Scimonster If you use == to compare strings, Perl will helpfully yell at you, and will truncate each string to its initial substring that's a number. Thus '2legit' == '2quit' is true.

@msh210 Couldn't quite figure that out, but i made some other optimizations and am now beating you by a good 29 bytes.

@Scimonster I haven't the time now to look at mine again, but I suspect that, when I do have time, I won't beat that.