The OFFICIAL Countdown To Lockn 2017 Thread

143
Means "I Love You."
One letter in I,
Four in Love,
and three in You.

Q & A from Reference
The "143" slang term is typically used in SMS text messaging, but also in emails and on social media sites. The singer Musiq Soulchild brought attention to the use of "143" in his song by the same name. The lyrics explain that love is complicated enough and that simplifying it with a numerical phrase is an appropriate way to convey pure emotions.


If you grew up texting, IMing, or using a pager, you're most likely familiar with the meaning of the number 143, which we have come to know as an abbreviation for "I Love You," based on the number of letters in each word.

But when did the number 143 first take on that meaning? In our age of technology, the answer might surprise you.

The first recorded association of "143" with "I Love You" is from the year 1894, when a new flashing lantern was installed in Minots Ledge Light, a lighthouse located southeast of Boston Harbor.

The light was installed after Lt. Fredeick Mahan of the Lighthouse Board recommended all lighthouses have a numerical flash sequence, and 1-4-3 was chosen (with no apparent reason) for this particular lighthouse: one flash, then four flashes, then three. (Due to high costs, Minots Ledge Light was only one of two lighthouses that actually had numerical-pattern lights installed).

Shortly after the new flashing light was installed, people started to recognize the connection between "1-4-3" and "I love you" and the lighthouse gained the nickname "Lovers' Light". The 1-4-3 light has since become automatic, and still flashes in the same pattern today.

Don't believe me? Would you believe Mr Rogers?

Another fact you might not know about 143 is that Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was particularly fond of this number. As Tom Junod recounts from an interview with him:

Once upon a time, around thirty-one years ago, Mister Rogers stepped on a scale, and the scale told him that Mister Rogers weighs 143 pounds... And so, every day, Mister Rogers refuses to do anything that would make his weight change...and every morning, the scale tells him that he weighs 143 pounds. This has happened so many times that Mister Rogers has come to see that number as a gift, as a destiny fulfilled, because, as he says, "the number 143 means 'I love you.' It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say 'love' and three letters to say 'you.' One hundred and forty-three. 'I love you.' Isn't that wonderful?"

To some, 143 is just a number. To Mister Rogers, and the lovers on Minot's Ledge, it has been a gift, a sign of love.

ECNALUBMA!!!

What? It wasn't obvious that this is from the 1469 Milanese illustrated manuscript call number MSM0139 located in the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts section of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York? Huh.

Well then I guess this.

If you stare at it long enough, it'll give you a clue to where a golden rabbit is hidden.

Mark Twain and Simpsons. Kind of the same.

Happy Information Day!

Had this queued up but spaced. Lockn may have been hotter last year.

Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.