Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Hmm - `the clock struck eeny' doesn't scan though.
    
    b

    It is true that some rhymes have old counts in them (e.g. the
    "hethera, tethera, pimp" in one English rhyme is an alternate
    Welsh number sequence used in counting sheep in one district).
    Based on this, some researchers have proposed that "eeny, meeny"
    is a pre-Celtic count, but there's no evidence at all on what
    the pre-Celtic language in Britain was that I know of beyond
    speculation about some place names.  We know little enough
    about the old British spoken when the Romans invaded, and that
    was several waves of Celts later.
    
    I've never read any speculation on "hickory, dickory" and tend
    to doubt it is a counting rhyme.  Lots of rhymes have rhyming
    nonsense words like that: shilly shally, dilly dally, etc.
    
    If you're interested, start with the Opies (a couple who have 
    done lots of research on children's rhymes and folkways) and
    with a serious history of English and follow the references
    to the linguistic literature.
    
    As for "Druidic": the Druids were an organized priesthood 
    at the time of the Roman conquest.  They were largely wiped
    out by the conquest, though they survived in Ireland to some
    extent.  Nothing they wrote has survived, if they wrote anything,
    so all we know is what is reported by their enemies.  Nothing
    I've read implies that the current "druids" are organizationally
    connected to the real ones.  "Eeny meeny" might be a count in 
    some secret language of Druids--but how would we know?
    
    		-John Bishop

	But but - it was on the BBC!  It must be true!

	:-^  :-) 

	More seriously, it was mentioned in the same show 
	that some form close to hickory, dickory, dock is 
	even now used, in counting, by some people in some 
	part or other of England.

	Jim

    Re .3: And "eeny, meeny..." is even now used for counting in many areas
    of the United States. [As is "My mother told me to pick the very best
    one," but I don't think that one has a claim to be Roman _or_ Druidic.
    Amazon, maybe? ;-)] Says more for the durability of childhood counting
    rhymes than for ancestral memory... (Wait, I feel the urge to nail
    someone's intestines to an oak tree. Be right back.)
    
    Ah, that's better. Now - I used to think that "mene" (as in "Mene,
    mene, tekel upharsin") was the origin for "meeney," which would make it
    Assyrian or something, but alas! I don't recall what it was supposed to
    mean, and if that made any sense in the context of the rhyme (not that
    poetry has to make sense; some Babylonian might just have liked the
    sound of it).
    
    [Um, anybody remember what the original writing-on-the-wall meant,
    anyway? My memory's falling apart, and all I can think of is "The
    moving finger writes"...]
    
    Playing "Jeopardy" with a "Wheel of Fortune" memory,
    -b

    Literally: "weights, weights, measures, <something>", with
    	much pun capability available in the original Aramaic.
    
    As interpreted: "You have been tried in the balance and found
    	wanting; you will be conquered and replaced by the Medes
    	and the Persians".
    
    In college I knew a guy who had a t-shirt with the phrase on
    it.
    		-John Bishop

    "...tried in the balance..." Yeah, that was it! Thanks - that ought to
    forestall the erosion of my private beach of little grey cells, at
    least until the next encroachment by Time, the Great Nor'easter. [I
    knew it meant something to the effect of "Your ass is grass," but then
    I got sidetracked wondering who the king was who spent years thinking
    he _was_ an ass, so I gave up.]
    
    Weights and measures - that'd be good for a counting rhyme. OK, I'll
    postulate that "eeny, meeny" is Aramaic, then, along the lines of
    "a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck". Refute me who dare.
    
    ;-)
    
    -b

    No idea what it all means, specifically -- but my recollection of the
    sense is as said above.
    
    Pretty bad Performance Review, IMHO!  I'd sure hate to get one like
    that, and written on the wall for all to see like that -- whew...
    
    :-) Dan
    
    PS -- and anent "The moving finger writes..." again from fragmentary
    and failing Little Grey Cells:  "...and having writ, moves on...  and
    all your piety nor wit can cancel out a line of it..."  So who wrote
    it?  Yeats?  Shakespeare?  Why O Why don't I have a Bartlett's Familiar
    Quotations here in the office?????  What's the whole quote?  I
    anxiously await the answer from the more recently educated or the
    better cellulosically or CD-ROMically endowed.

    "Moving finger," etc. is from Victor Kiam - no, he owns razor blades
    and Patriots. Omar Khayam, that's it!
    
    	The moving finger writes, and having writ,
    	moves on; nor all your piety nor wit
    	erase, nor all your tears 
    	wash out a word of it.
    
    [Or something along those lines. Believe it or don't, I used to know
    this stuff!]
    
    -b

re .3:

>	But but - it was on the BBC!  It must be true!

Like the famous report on the spaghetti crop in Italy?

    G'day,
    
     preserving the rathole for a moment..
    
    Is it not......
    
    The moving finger writes,
    and having writ, moves on.
    not all your tears or wit can lure it back,
    to cancel half a line,
    nor all your tears wash out a single word of it.
    
    The Rubyat of Omah Kyam  (sp?)
    
    
    Obviously had an early form of a W**g word processor   ;-)
    
    How about: 'eeny meeny makarackka rare om pom push' - a sequence my
    wife used as a kid to eleminate choices... the push part pushed out the
    then current selection.
    
    derek
    ps saw a neat cartoon - earth visited by aliens of giant stature..
    
    mother alien to child alien who was building with 'lego' blocks made
    from stone... Come along now, we will miss the spacecraft.. leave
    those, I'll get some more...
    
    The blocks were  in a sort of circle like dominoes on end, with others
    laid across their tops.....

>>>	But but - it was on the BBC!  It must be true!

>>Like the famous report on the spaghetti crop in Italy?

	Actually, it was a report on the spaghetti harvest
	in the Ticino, Switzerland.  I saw the original;
	I believed it then and I believe it now.  For at
	least miny reasons:

	Eeny:  Richard Dimbleby was very trustworthy
	Meeny: it was after midday on April Eeny, so it 
	       _couldn't_ have been an All Fools' joke
	Miny:  it was on the Beeb!

	Jim  8-}

    I think we're crossing wires here.  The original quote is from chapter
    5 in the book of Daniel.
      

Daniel 5, King James Version

Daniel 5:1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his
    lords, and drank wine before the thousand.
  {and partied ...}
  5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over
    against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's
    palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
  6 Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him,
    so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one
    against another.
  7 The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the
    soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon,
    Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof,
    shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck,
    and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.
  8 Then came in all the king's wise men: but they could not read the
    writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.
  9 Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was
    changed in him, and his lords were astonied.

  {enter Daniel, who tells the king, vs. 22, "thou ... O Belshazzar, hast not
  humbled thine heart ... 23 But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of
  heaven ..."}

 24 Then was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was
    written.
 25 And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
 26 This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy
    kingdom, and finished it.
 27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
 28 PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
 29 Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put
    a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him,
    that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
 30 In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.
 31 And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two
    years old.

    `... having writ, moves on ...' Yes, OK, Fitzgerald translation.
    
    Re .6
    What's a bushel and a peck got to do with it - or a barrel and a heave,
    come to that? A bushel's pretty heavy if you fill it with the right
    stuff, but a heave doesn't come into it (except etymologically).
    
    b

    Waydaminnit!  That's not right!  It goes like this:	
    
    			I love you --
    			A bushel and a peck,
                        A bushel and a peck
                        And a hug around the neck.
                        A hug around the neck
                        And a barrel and a heap,
                        A barrel and a heap
                        And I'm talking in my sleep
                        About YOU --- OOOOOOOOH!
                        Doodle oodle oodle,
                        Oodle, oodle oodle,
                        Oodle, oodle ooooh!

    Immortal lyrics from "Guys and Dolls."

					andrew

    
    
    	Ah ha!  Proof positive that Frank Loesser was a Druid!
    
    
    	There's got to be a doctoral thesis in there somewhere.

    _My_ original cast recording says `heave'; it rhymes with `sleeve'
    (which doesn't appear in your version either).
    
    Hmm. I guess it's the `original cast' singing two versions; like -
    
    He'll come in hot and tired, poor dear,
    No matter if he's tired so long as he's here
    
    and 
    He'll come in hot and tired, so what?
    No matter if he's tired so long as he's hot 
    (much better, but the `original' recording company chickened out; I
    didn't hear the second version until recently)
    
    Or
    
    You'll find that you're in Rotogravure
    vs
    Then you'll be seen in the smart magazines
    
    Or
    
    And My Fair Lady
    They say is a terrific show
    vs
    And South Pacific
    Is a terrific show they say
    
    I wish they wouldn't do this.
    
    b

Re .13,

> 25 And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.
> 26 This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy
>    kingdom, and finished it.
> 27 TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
> 28 PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

So a whole sentence can be encoded into a four to eight character
string?  That's a pretty neat compression algorithm!  Is it out of
copyright yet?

Jon

>So a whole sentence can be encoded into a four to eight character
>string?  That's a pretty neat compression algorithm!  Is it out of
>copyright yet?

Dunno.  'Seems to me, though, that the guy what first came up with the
algorithm must've been inspired.

    	Copyright in most countries outside the U.S. extends to 100 years
    after the death of the author (for example Dickens came out of
    copyright only a few years ago).
    
    	In this case a number of people would claim the Author is not dead
    yet, so you could have to wait a long time for the copyright to end.

    Hmmm.  I don't think that applies in the UK.
    
    The Gilbert and Sullivan operettas have lost their copyright,
    and G&S haven't been dead 100 years.

   In the United States, since 1978 copyrights are good for the life
   of the author plus 50 years. For anonymous works or works for hire,
   the copyright is good for 75 years from the date of publication or
   100 years from the date of creation.

   Under the old copyright law (before Jan. 1978), a copyright was
   good for 28 years and could be renewed for another 28 years. The
   new law permits pre-1978 copyrights to be renewed for an additional
   28 to 47 years, giving a maximum of 75 years of protection. 

   This means that anything copyrighted before 1916 (1991 minus 75) is
   now in the public domain, and many works published after 1916
   whose copyright has not been renewed are also in the public domain.

   Copyright laws differ around the globe. The Universal Copyright
   Convention covers some 60 countries, and provides for international
   copyright protection. 

   Bruce  

         I think Dave's right about the UK situation of copyright 
         lasting for 100 years after the death of an individual 
         author.
         
         Just a couple of years ago the copyright of Peter Pan, which 
         J M Barrie bequeathed to St Ormond's Street Hospital for Sick 
         Children, was about to reach its 100 year expiry date.  To 
         protect the Hospital's income from this source the British 
         Parliament passed an Act extending their copyright in 
         perpetuity (proposed by the Right Honourable James Callaghan, 
         PC).
         
         I think the problem with G&S copyrights is either that G or S 
         died over 100 years ago, or that copyright is different when 
         it's owned by a company.  Weren't the G&S operetta copyrights 
         owned by the Savoy Opera Company?
         
         Nick

    	The last thing I had through from the legal department on the
    subject said something to the effect of the following:
    
    The U.S. only recently (quite likely Jan. 1978 since .22 mentions that
    date) signed the international agreement. As a result, authors outside
    the U.S. have protection within the U.S. governed by this agreement,
    and U.S. authors have protection outside the U.S. under the same
    agreement since then.
    
    Within the U.S. the international agreement does not apply if it is a
    purely internal matter. This means that a U.S. author has a shorter
    copyright within the U.S. than in most of the rest of the world. Since
    the memo I had from the legal department did not go in to details I
    assume those in .22 are correct.
    
    There are also differences in requirements for copyright notices.
    Britain has no requirement for such a notice; I doubt if Dickens ever
    used one. The strictest requirement is that it must be either the
    international symbol or the word in full, followed by a date, etc. -
    some countries will not respect any variant abbreviations or
    translations.

>So a whole sentence can be encoded into a four to eight character
>string?  That's a pretty neat compression algorithm!  Is it out of
>copyright yet?
    
    Ain't necessarily no compression algorithm.  For example, Chinese
    abounds with four-character sayings, any one of which would take from
    one sentence to a whole story to explain in English.
    
    --Simon
    

.23>         ... (proposed by the Right Honourable James Callaghan, PC).

Is it standard procedure for a Police Constable to propose an Act of
Parliament?

    Re: .-1
    
    It's a fair cop.

re .0

This seems vaguely Druidic too:

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To:	See Below

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