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Note from Joe: Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Modern Major-General”
is not great poetry, but some of its countless parodies are truly inspired.
My favorite is this one by Gary Friedman (inventor of the Data Egg; in
the Guiness Book of World Records for making the first working Shoe
Phone; a member of our local Hewlett-Packard User’s Club and frequent host
of our monthly meetings; holder of multiple patents; and one of the
finest guys I’m happy to call a friend). I’ve also included below, for your reading pleasure, the text of the original Modern Major-General, as well as some other exquisite parodies: The Elements, A Better Model, Ethical Major-General, and three brilliant ones under the heading Tele Types. |
I’ve studied chemistry and learned the formulas of saturate
Solutions in normality in labs that are immaculate,
And programmed huge machines with large routines I’ve written just so that
Infrequently will I encounter problems that I can’t attack;
I’m very good at systems both in digital and analogue;
Have studied great philosophers; can quote to you their dialogue;
I’ll work all day and never quit, that is if I can manage it;
I am the very model of an engineering graduate.
I use my Hewlett-Packard for the answers found in calculus,
And problems most encountered in numerical analysis;
It calculates proportions used in heart and lung dialysis;
Eventually I’ll work for them and move to where Corvallis is.
My interests are much greater than my friends and colleagues might believe;
I’ve worked with magic and performed illusions written to deceive;
In elementary schools I’ll work with children who do not receive
The help and dedication they require so they might achieve.
My years of work and study have allowed me to become involved
In engineering problems that have only partially been solved.
My grades, however, are the pits, and I don’t really give a s---,
That’s why I am the model of an engineering graduate.
GENERAL:
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the
fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters
mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and
quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a
lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square
of the hypotenuse.
ALL:
With many cheerful facts about the square
of the hypotenuse.
With many cheerful facts about the square
of the hypotenuse.
With many cheerful facts about the square
of the hypotenuse.
GENERAL:
I’m very good at integral and differential
calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and
mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
ALL:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and
mineral,
He is the very model of a modern Major-General.
GENERAL:
I know our mythic history, King Arthur’s and
Sir Caradoc’s;
I answer hard acrostics, I’ve a pretty taste
for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows
and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs
of Aristophanes!
Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard
the music’s din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal
nonsense Pinafore.
ALL:
And whistle all the airs from that infernal
nonsense Pinafore.
And whistle all the airs from that infernal
nonsense Pinafore.
And whistle all the airs from that infernal
nonsense Pinafore.
GENERAL:
Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic
cuneiform,
And tell you ev’ry detail of Caractacus’s
uniform:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and
mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
ALL:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and
mineral,
He is the very model of a modern Major-General.
GENERAL:
In fact, when I know what is meant by “mamelon”
and “ravelin”,
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from
a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises
I’m more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by
“commissariat”,
When I have learnt what progress has been
made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice
in a nunnery--
In short, when I’ve a smattering of elemental
strategy,
You’ll say a better Major-General has never
sat a gee.
ALL:
You’ll say a better Major-General has never
sat a gee.
You’ll say a better Major-General has never
sat a gee.
You’ll say a better Major-General has never
sat a gee.
GENERAL:
For my military knowledge, though I’m plucky
and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning
of the century;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and
mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
ALL:
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and
mineral,
He is the very model of a modern Major-General.
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, and protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There’s yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There’s strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There’s holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There’s sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered.
I’ve built a better model than the one at Data General
For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral
My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality;
My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality.
My storage system’s better than magnetic core polarity,
You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity;
There isn’t any reason to install non-static floor matting;
My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting.
Chorus: His disk drive has capacity for variable formatting,
His disk drive has capacity
for variable formatting,
His disk drive has capacity
for variable format-formatting.
I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point:
There’s lots of room in memory for variables floating-point,
Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
I’ve built a better model than the one at Data General.
Chorus: Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
He’s built a better model
than the one at Data General.
The IBM new home computer’s nothing more than germinal;
At Prime they still have trouble with an interactive terminal;
While Tandy’s done a lousy job with operations Boolean,
At Wang the byte capacity’s too small to fit a coolie in.
Intel’s mid-year finances are something of the trouble sort;
The Timex Sinclair crashes when you implement a bubble sort.
All DEC investors soon will find they haven’t spent their money well;
And need I even mention Nixdorf, Univac, or Honeywell?
Chorus: And need he even mention Nixdorf, Univac, or Honeywell?
And need he even mention
Nixdorf, Univac, or Honeywell?
And need he even mention
Nixdorf, Univac, or Honey-Honeywell?
By striving to eliminate all source code that’s repetitive
I’ve brought my benchmark standings to results that are competitive.
In short, for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
I’ve built a better model than the one at Data General.
Chorus: In short for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
He’s built a better model
than the one at Data General.
In fact when I’ve a floppy of a maximum diameter,
When I can call a subroutine of infinite parameter,
When I can point to registers and keep their current map around,
And when I can prevent the need for mystifying wraparound,
When I can update record blocks with minimum of suffering,
And when I can afford to use a hundred K for buffering,
When I’ve performed a matrix sort and tested the addition rate,
You’ll marvel at the speed of my asynchronous transmission rate.
Chorus: You’ll marvel at the speed of his asynchronous transmission
rate,
You’ll marvel at the speed
of his asynchronous transmission rate,
You’ll marvel at the speed
of his asynchronous transmission-mission rate.
Though all my better programs that self-reference recursively
Have only been obtained through expert spying, done subversively,
But still for input vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I’ve built a better model than the one at Data General.
Chorus: But still for input vegetable, animal, and mineral,
He’s built a better model
than the one at Data General.
News Item. A military spokesman expressed opposition to U. S. involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina on the grounds that the intervention would not satisfy the conditions for a “just war” as they are understood in philosophy, in that the intervention could not be carried out with sufficient force to be successful.I am the very model of a modern Major-General;
I can’t abide unseemly haste in matters interventionist,
I always want to think it out in manner consequentialist,
I’ll make a different plan for every battlefield contingency,
But only if it meets a test of philosophic stringency;
I’m trained in formal logic and linguistical analysis;
I’ll formulate a problem to the point of full paralysis;
I find it most imperative to think quite categorical,
Because I know that if I do I’ll never go to war at all.
In short in every matter Philo-Sophico-conceptual
I am the very model of a modern Major-General!
1. The Journalist.
I am the very model of a television journalist:
My point of view is insular; my politics, internalist.
Although a bit perfunctory with Commie demagoguery,
I shine at exposes of penny-ante pettifoggery;
Instead of gauging odds against a European holocaust,
I’d rather be reporting what the movie Marco Polo cost;
I squander thirty seconds on a pestilence in Pakistan --
And budget seven minutes for a photograph of Jackie’s tan.
When I was only ten, my dying mother made me promise I’d
Refuse to cover Congress, when confronted with a homicide;
And that’s why I’m an insular, inflexibly internalist,
Unmitigated model of a television journalist.
2. The Executive.
I am the very pattern of a network chief executive:
I’ve only two ideas, and they’re frankly not consecutive.
The first of these is violence, a thing we only simulate;
The other one is T and A, but not enough to stimulate.
I don’t air documentaries or other esoterica,
But you can watch the Oscars and the race for Miss America:
Your kids’ll learn humility and grace from the Academy --
And watching Miss America will teach ’em their anatomy.
The F. C. C.’s unshakably persuaded that the nation’ll
Be better off with me to make the airwaves educational,
So I’ve a third idea (and it’s also not consecutive)
That I’m the very pattern of a network chief executive.
3. The Viewer.
I am the very type of ratings-sample representative:
In terms of evolution, my intelligence is tentative.
I’m chosen by the Nielsen boys to keep a viewing chronicle,
Because my chin’s receding and my cranium is conical.
Executives and journalists exhibit fitting deference
By structuring their programs to accommodate my preference;
The sponsors bust their chops to charm my occiput of ivory --
An enterprise that dooms them all to lives of nine-to-fivery.
For should they ever hesitate to pander to vulgarity,
They’ll all become recipients of governmental charity.
My judgment is conclusive, though my intellect is tentative,
And that’s why I’m the type of ratings-sample representative.