“Only entropy comes easy.” - Anton Chekhov (c.1900); also stated by Lewis Mumford (1970)
“You should call it entropy, because nobody knows what entropy really is, so in a debate you will always have the advantage.” - John Neumann (c.1939), suggestion to Claude Shannon on what to call his new formula for information
“Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.” - Vaclav Havel (1986), Czech playwright
Source: EOHT
Posted: 2026 Jan 10
A wondrous bird is the pelican
Its beak holds more than its belly can
It can hold in its beak
Enough food for a week
And I don’t know how in the helican.
I read somewhere that the limerick is the only truly English-language form of poetry. Everything else is borrowed from somewhere else. So I submit that in honour of the English, who no doubt stole it from the Irish. Nothing to do with the bird, of course.
Jim T
Jim – I had never heard that about the limerick. Certainly they are wondrous birds. (Also, alerted by your follow-up comment, I have corrected the final line of your limerick and it seems to have taken. I think it matters how you hold your tongue.)