The best quiz on one's abilities ever seen on LJ,

[rymenhild]

thanks to fleurdelis28:



And now to answer that burning question all of you share: am I, in fact, the very model of an 1880s Modern Major General? For that matter, are you? (A.K.A., copy the text of this song and put in bold all the things you can do, and in italics the things you can sort of do).

Edited because I googled Sir Caradoc and discovered he was the same person as Caractacus. Oh, him. Since I have not finished the 1st Continuation of Perceval, where he apparently appears, there will be no bold text there.

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.

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.

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's;
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox, (Especially fried. ~Ed.)
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.

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.

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.

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century; (I.e. the fourteenth ~Ed.)
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

Alas, I do not know any Babylonic cuneiform.

Also, there is a fascinating discussion about thirteenth-century England over at greythistle's page, to which I will be adding my tuppence as soon as I formulate my thoughts.

Comments

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, fried paradox...

[cryptoquip.livejournal.com]

What is the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes?

I saw a dover edition of The Rape of the Lock with Beardsley illustrations at Comic Relief today and thought of you.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to bother retyping the Greek; see transliteration and Greek in various places in this thread.

Hmm, I missed that. I did buy myself a copy of the last Sandman, and read it all right away, so I haven't gotten any work done tonight at all.

[cryptoquip.livejournal.com]

What, the last? Like, the end of the series? Have you read it before? Did you cry? Isn't it great?!

[scazon.livejournal.com]

AWESOME. I have gestolen it.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting a pointer--my brain's fuzzy, so (even more than usual) the more people the merrier.

Caradoc is also in the alliterative Morte (my chosen theory+methodology text), where he has no visible relation to Caractacus.