BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 03:23 AM

No -- actually, I tried to look it up, but couldn't find it in any of the sources I suggest above; so it really was from memory. Didn't intend any 'correction'; just expressing a preference for the scansion of version I recalled.

☺ right back 2U

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Amergin
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 03:23 AM

There is alot of math inside poetry, especially in the forms....you have the haiku, which is 5 syllables, 7, 5....and the tanka, which is 5, 7, 5, 7, 7.....and the landay 9, 13....and then you have the sonnets, usually 14-5 lines, ten syllables each, some with a rhyme scheme others without....and the sestinas, and so on.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 03:18 AM

Ah, but I bet you looked it up, while I typed from memory of it a decade or so ago. The old folk process at work again! *smile*


Thanks for the correction

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 03:10 AM

I find the scansion more pleasing in the version based on Carroll's original (I think it's in one of the Penguin Books of Comic & Curious Verse; or perhaps in Oscar Williams' Little Treasury of Modern Verse?) --

He was a man whose mind was full
Of indices and surds
X-squared plus twenty-seven x
Equals eleven thirds

written as

x^2 + 27x
= 11/3

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 02:18 AM

,argh" surds not surfs. Blooming spelling 'correction' tools!

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 02:16 AM

Lewis Carroll of Alice fame wrote this verse in a poem

Yet what use are such gaieties to me
Whose head is full of indices are surfs
X^2 + 7x +3
=11 2/3


I find it scans best as

X squared plus seven x plus three
Is equal to eleven and two thirds

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 14 - 02:18 PM

The dove returned with an olive branch, the Flood finally receded, and the ark settled at the top of Mount Ararat. Then Noah called forth all the animals.

"Go forth and multiply," he called out, and the animals all walked, two by two, down the gangplank and off to repopulate the world, each pair according to its own kind.

Noah was tidying up around the arc, battening down the hatches and all that, when he saw two small snakes curled up in a corner, crying.

"Why are you two still here?" Noah said, "I commanded you all to go forth and multiply!"

"But we can't," replied one of the snakes. "We're adders!"

(Rimshot!!)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mysha
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 04:00 PM

Hi,

So, are you paying this Robert for Mathematics?

Bye
                                                                  Mysha

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Bert
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 02:48 PM

Exponential Blarney       A

A
If you go to Ireland
    D
and you have a tale to tell
             A
They'll tell you a couple back
E7
and tell 'em twice as well


A
For two for one's the deal me lads
    D
The best you've ever known
    A
For everyone in Ireland
E7            A
Has kissed the blarney stone

Now you've got three stories
You're really in a fix
Tell 'em to a friend be boys
and he'll come back with six

Now you've got nine stories
And as sure as Ireland's green
Tell 'em to a neighbor
And he'll tell you eighteen

Now I've twenty seven stories
And if I tell them to you
You'll have to tell me fifty four
Before this day is through

If you keep telling stories
As you go from door to door
You'll have fifty million stories
That you've never heard before

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 02:11 PM

Thanks for the limerick, Mrrzy.

Last year I met a grade-school teacher who said it is very hard to get the students to learn their number facts. Maybe using rhythm and rhyme and making a game of it would help.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 12:04 PM

Three old American Indian ladies are sitting around bragging about their children; one says, see this lion skin I'm sitting on? MY son killed the lion with his bare hands to bring it to me; the second says, see this tiger skin I'm sitting on? Well, MY son killed this tiger with HIS bare hands! The third old woman isn't saying much, so they give her that look, and she finally says See this hippo skin I'm sitting on? Well, I killed this hippo myself.
And that proves that the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.
(There is another one about how even adders can multiply on a log table, but I spare you the setup.)
But I'll bite - is the fifth letter the s?

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Musket
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 03:06 AM

Being mathematical about it, there are five letters in math.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 11:10 PM

Well, people were getting 7-and-6 back from things that were smaller than 7 in the first place, is what I recall, and I am not at all sure where the bobs come in. Nor guineas, for that matter.

Joe - yikes.

And yes, having one math is bad enough!

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Stanron
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 10:59 PM

Perhaps in the colonies having more than one math might be too complicated.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 10:38 PM

Mrr: When I read that limerick in 1998, it checked, but now it doesn't. None of us is getting any younger.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST,Triplane
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 05:09 AM

Mysha u r correct 12 Pence or 1 Shillimg or even a Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 03:32 AM

UK 'Maths' = US 'Math' —

Just as UK 'colour' = US 'color'.

Simple. Why make a thing of it?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 03:23 AM

If you got 7/6 change from 3/- you're doing well.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST,Mrr at work
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 09:07 PM

that was me, sorry

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 09:06 PM

In French too maths are plural.

And the English money system was always a mystery, how can change from 3 bob be seven-and-sixpence? or whatever.

But that's not poetry... love the new limerick but don't know enough to find out if it's true!

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mysha
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 04:26 PM

Hi Triplane,

A shilling's worth, I'd say.

Bye
                                                                Mysha

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Joe_F
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 04:16 PM

And for the advanced class:

The integral z squared dz
From 1 to the square root of 3
Times the cosine
Of 3 pi over 9
Equals log of the cube root of e.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 03:14 PM

ah.... sorry to be pedantic but it is Maths

because there are two sides to the equation.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST,Triplane
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 03:07 PM

Juts a wee Scottish one b4 we change the currency

Tuppence an'twapence
a groat an' three ha'pence
a penny a penny an' an odd bawbee = ?

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 02:50 PM

OOh, not a bit more, even better!

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mysha
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 01:31 PM

Hi,

Well, I guess I would write that as


((12 + 144 + 20 + 3√4)/7) + (5*11)= 9² + $1/8


Bye
                                                                ,Mysha

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 12:56 PM

I should finish reading before clicking send on what I am commenting upon.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 12:55 PM

Ah, yes, I forgot about 9^2 for squared, so I just wrote 81.

Is three to the fourth and no more

would work, but that would be 3^4.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 11:29 AM

Airymouse - sadly, your first suggestion doesn't rhyme and your second doesn't scan (though if you changed 'and not a bit more' to 'and no more' it would fit).

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Airymouse
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 08:58 AM

Why not = (9)^2 +0?
Else the last line could be
Is three to the fourth, and not a bit more.

Subject: RE: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: G-Force
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 04:46 AM

There once was a man from Bengal
Who had a math'matical ball
The sum of its weight
Was equal to eight
Plus twice the square root of fuck all

Subject: BS: Math and Poetry: A Numerical Limerick
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Aug 14 - 06:29 PM

I don't know the html for formatting math so here goes. I will use "sq" to mean the square-root-of symbol.

((12 + 144 + 20 + 3sq4)/7)+(5*11)=81+0

that is the math

Here is the limerick, in English

A dozen, a gross and a score
Plus 3 times the square root of 4
Divided by 7
Plus 5 times 11
Is 9 squared, and not a bit more.

Isn't that lovely for all parts of both sides of your brain?