Speaking of interpreting random events as signs from God, last night I read Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn. The isolated island nation of Nollop, off the South Carolina coast, reveres the pangram, The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. They even have it displayed in large tiles for all to marvel at.

When the 'Z' tile falls, the elders interpret it as a sign from their deity that 'Z' is to be shunned. As more and more tiles fall, less and less can be legally spoken and written. Citizens are exiled, flogged and driven to madness by their diminishing vocabulary and shrinking society.

The story is told via a collection of correspondence between Nollopians. Ella Minnow Pea is a quick read because even small notes are posted on their own page. And toward the end, when there are only five letters left in the aphabet, the letters get pretty short. There isn't much you can spell with just LMNOP.