Recite a sequence by heart!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

Dang. I was going to recite some Pi, but all I’ve got is a measly 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399…

Instead, I’ll see how many people recognize this oddity:

One duck.

One duck, two hens.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Donna Elvira’s tweezers.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Donna Elvira’s tweezers, seven thousand Macedonian soldiers in full battle array.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Donna Elvira’s tweezers, seven thousand Macedonian soldiers in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Donna Elvira’s tweezers, seven thousand Macedonian soldiers in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt, nine apathetic sympathetic diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth.

One duck, two hens, three squawking geese, four Limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of Donna Elvira’s tweezers, seven thousand Macedonian soldiers in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt, nine apathetic sympathetic diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity toward procrastination and sloth, ten lyrical spherical diabolical denizens of the deep who all stall around the corners of the quay of the quai of the quivvy all at the same time.

(I have no idea what a “quai” or a “quivvy” is, or even if I’m spelling them right. I only know what I heard, and how to recite it verbally.)

Does anyone know the origin of this bizarre list?

-Fezzik

82

The Prepositions, in alphabetical order

about above after against along among around at before behind below beneath beside besides between beyond but by down during except for from in inside into like near of off onto opposite over…

Shoot, I had 'em all in 6th grade.

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of york
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreathes… Crud again.

Wow my memory’s going. Mrs. Kurtz would be so disappointed in me.

I do still have (really!) the first 18 lines of the Canterbury tales in middle english, but someone already got that one.

83

French dialogue from about the 7th grade:

  • Michelle, Anne, vous travaillez?"
  • Uh, non, maman, nous regardons la télévision.
  • Pourquoi? Les Duponts arrivent dans une heure.
  • S’il te plaît, maman, encore cinq minutes.
84

If you find it, please tell me. I wish I could forget all the bad 80s music crap that I still have cluttering my head. I’d rather use the brainspace for other things.

To stay on topic, here’s glycolysis:

glucose -> glucose-6-P -> fructose-6-P -> fructose-1,6-dP -> glyceraldehyde-3-P + dihydroxyacetone-P
G3P <-> DHAP
G3P -> 1,3-diphosphoglycerate -> 3-phosphoglycerate -> 2-phosphoglycerate -> phosphoenolpyruvate -> pyruvate

Anyone wanna try Kreb’s cycle?

85

Hummmmmm… the “corpulent porpoises” bit was sounding familiar, so just for kicks I read it out loud. And I’m thinking it’s one of those enunciation exercises for theatre types, like “What a to-do to die today at a minute or two to two…”

86

And of course since Google is my friend, I found a bunch of references. Most include a small difference: it’s “Don Alverso’s” tweezers, not “Donna Elivira’s.” Several sites suggested that it originated as a radio announcer’s test in the forties, but none cited any conclusive evidence. The verses also appeared in a number of camp-song collections, but it’s unclear whether they were actually set to music or just recited.

87

Aus bei mit nach seit von zu: German prepositions taking the Dative.

Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou: movies directed/produced by the Coen brothers.

Speak and Spell, Broken Frame, Construction Time Again, People Are People, Some Great Reward, Black Celebration, Music for the Masses, Violator, Songs of Faith and Devotion, Ultra, Exciter: Depeche Mode Albums

Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon coeur?

-Verlaine

88

When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back:
Three from the circle, three from the track.
Wood, bronze, iron, fire water stone;
Five shall return, and one go alone.

Iron for the birthday; stone out of song;
Wood from the burning; bronze carried long;
Fire from the candle-ring; water from the thaw;
Six signs the circle, and the grail gone before.

Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the seekers; oldest of the old.
Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea.
All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree.

From The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper. A book which struck me squarely in the brain at an impressionable age. My buddy Bob and I seriously freaked out our friend Kathleen by chanting it in unison at a party with almost no provocation.

I Heart AudreyK, by the way.

89

Here’s another one in a similar vein:

At Tara in this sacred hour
I place all heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place
By God’s almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.

-Patrick’s Rune, from Madeleine l’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet

I’ve adapted it for use as a protective chant for my rituals, with the following last segment:

…and the earth with its starkness,
And the night with its darkness;
All these we place
By the gods’ almighty help and grace
Between ourselves and the powers that would harm us.

Anyway:

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year (continuing) mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man (one) has gone before.

Lela, Tobin, Audrid, Emony, Torias, Joran, Curzon, Jadzia, Verad, Ezri, Yedrin (alternate timeline). Dax’s hosts.

“So this is a coup.”
“No, it’s a free election, and you can run if you want. But if you do this entire incident will be made public. And when the people of Bajor find out you risked a civil war over a couple of pieces of FARM EQUIPMENT, they’re never going to trust you again. You’ll still be Kai, the spiritual leader of Bajor, but your days in this office are numbered. So if I were you, I’d start packing.”
-Kira’s speech to Winn in “Shakaar” (DS9). I have no idea why I remember that.

90

That bit has inspired some of my most cryptic verse, Trout. Now for my contributions:

The last verse of “Rattlin’ Bog”:

And in this world, there was a bog,
A rare bog, a rattlin’ bog…
Bog in the world
and the world on the speck
and the speck on the feather
and the feather on the wing
and the wing on the bird
and the bird in the egg
and the egg in the nest
and the nest on the leaf
and the leaf on the twig
and the twig on the branch
and the branch on the limb
and the limb on the tree
and the tree in the hole
and the hole in the bog
and the bog down in the valley, oh!
<chorus>
The bolded section is to be sung on one breath, BTW. :eek:

Vicious, but here it is (Corsair points to anyone who knows what the Captain’s daughter looks like)–
…Put him in the longboat till he’s sober…
…Hoist him up the mast with the Jolly Roger…
…Put him in the cabin with the Captain’s daughter…
…Shave his belly with a rusty razor…
…Take him to the pub and get him drunker…
…Kick him in the belly till he pukes his guts out…
…Catch it in a bucket and make him drink it…
…Put him in a dress and call him “Sally”…
…Give him the hair of the dog what bit him…
(We won’t go into all the other Ren/Celtic songs and sea shanties I know.)

And for poetry–

91

Oooo, the Krebs Cycle. Lemme see if I can do this…

pyruvate -> acetyl CoA -> [citrate -> isocitrate -> alpha ketoglutarate -> succinyl CoA -> succinate -> fumarate -> malate -> oxaloacetate -> citrate]

Damn. Upon checking, I note I missed cis-aconitate, which apparently comes between citrate and isocitrate. Well, still, pretty close.

(Oh, and Grandfather Trout? I love The Dark Is Rising. And Balance, I’m at this minute re-reading (for the nth time) Godstalk and Dark of the Moon. In preparation for reading Seeker’s Mask, at long last.)

92

He said excuse me, I hope you don’t mind, but
I followed you into this shop, and
I couldn’t help but notice
a riding crop
sticking out of your haversack. Well,
I wouldn’t mind riding you bareback!

93

Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A
My sister and I learned it that way first from my grandparents. Nena is now 93 and we all spit it out at least one time at the Christmas Diner table!

94

matt_mcl, I’m beginning to hate you for starting this thread. I have a terrible memory - just awful - and now I’m learning why; it’s because my brain is all clogged up with junk.

Latest piece to swim to the surface of the Memory Ocean (a small amount visible, most of it hidden and murky and totally inaccessible):

Friends, Romans, countrymen
Lend me your ears
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him
The evil men do live after them
The good is oft interred with their bones
So let it be with Caesar.
The noble Brutus hath told you
That Caesar was ambitious
If it were so, it were a grievous fault
And grievously hath Caesar answered it
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man
So are they all, all honorable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral
He was my friend, faithful and just to me
But Brutus says he was ambitious
And Brutus was an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious
And Brutus was an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him with a kingly crown
Which he did thrice refuse
Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious
And sure he is an honorable man.
I do not speak to disprove what Brutus spoke
But here I am to speak what I do know
You all did love him once, not without cause
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts
And men have lost their reason.
Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar
And I must pause till it comes back to me.

(Apologies to Shakespeare for inevitable transcription errors and punctuation losses.)

Now, WHY do I know this? I mean, I love it and all - a great oration, a great piece of writing, etc. - but I never studied Julius Caesar and no one made me memorize this. Sigh.

95

There are only fifteen words you are allowed to say during bidding in contract bridge:

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, notrump, pass, double, redouble.

Only these and varaitions of these words are allowed, and they are to be said in a consistent manner.

96

Ahem If I’d known we’re allowed to repeat what other people said in previous posts, I would’ve done that McDonalds “Two all beef patties…” thing.

[Comic store guy from The Simpsons] Uh-oh…I’ve wasted my life…[/Comic store guy from The Simpsons]

97

Macdonald, Mackenzie, Macdonald, Abbott, Thompson, Bowell, Tupper, Laurier, Borden, Meighen, King, Meighen, King, Bennett, King, St. Laurent, Diefenbaker, Pearson, Trudeau, Clark, Trudeau, Turner, Mulroney, Campbell, Chrétien.
Nu sculan herigan heofonriches weard,
Weork wulderfaeder
Swa he waes.
Ece drighten, or onstealden.
The world was young, the mountains green
No stain yet on the moon was seen.
No words were laid on stream nor stone
When Dúrin woke, and walked alone.

He named the nameless hills and dells,
And drank from yet untasted wells.
He stooped to look in Mirror Mere
And saw a crown of stars appear
As gems upon a silver thread
Above the shadow of his head.

The world was fair,
The mountains tall
In elder days before the fall
Of mighty kings from Nargothrond
And Gondolin
Who now beyond
The Western Sea have gone away.
The world was fair,
In Dúrin’s day.

A king he was,
On carven throne,
In many-pillared halls of stone,
With golden roof and silver floor
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun, and stars, and moon
In shining lamps from crystal hewn,
Burned there forever, fair and bright.

There hammer on the anvil fell,
The chisel clove, the graver wrote.
The miner delved, the mason built.
There forged was blade and bound was hilt.

There pearl, beryl and opal pale,
And armour wrought like fish’s mail,
Bucklers and corsets,
Axe and sword,
And shining spear
Were laid in horde.

Unwearied then were Dúrin’s folk,
Beneath the mountain,
Music woke.
The harper harped,
The minstrel sang,
And at the gates,
A trumpet rang!

The world is old,
The mountains tall.
No lanterns burn in Dúrin’s hall.
The forge’s fire
Is ashen cold.
But still a crown of stars appears
In dark and windless Mirror Mere.
There lies his crown
In waters deep,
'Til Dúrin wakes again from sleep.

98

PMs of Canada, though, should that first Meighen be there? I thought it was Borden, then King, but it’s been a LOOOONG time since I took Canadian History, and I didn’t really pay attention…

99

Jerry Lewis used to do this on various talk shows back in the “good old days”. My father learned it when he was a young 'un, he thinks it was from the Tonight Show. To make things even more disturbing, he’ll occasionally break out in a recitation of this little ditty while driving down the road, which can be amusing, but also a little creepy.
oh ummmm my turn?


           Gauge Bosons
photon                  W[sub]0[/sub]
graviton                Z[sub]0[/sub]
gluon                   Higg's Boson[sup]1[/sup]

              Leptons
electron                electron neutrino
muon                    muon neutrino
tau                     tau neutrion

              quarks
up                      down
strange                 charmed
top (truth)             bottom (beauty)[sup]1[/sup]

1… Not experimentally verified, but predicted by (some) theories, the searches continue. But then, it’s a long time since I memorized this.

100

Captain’s daughter, let’s see, she’s about two feet tall, dark leathery hair, and makes a swish-crack sound when used. “Captain’s daughter” was slang for a cat o’ nine tails.

Oh, and Weird Al Einstein, the Doctor you’re missing was Sylvester McCoy.

And I’m so glad someone posted the alien races from Star Control II. And the Pkunk say:
Baby!
Jerk!
Loser!
Moron!
Worm!