[801] A mosquito was heard to complain

Bending the theme rules again...

A mosquito was heard to complain
That a chemist had poisoned his brain
The cause of his sorrow
Was paradichloro
Diphenyltrichloroethane.

	-- Dr. D. D. Perrin

Note: paradichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane - the chemical name for DDT. (Also
  1,1'-(2,2,2-trichloroethylidene) bis(4-chloro)-benzene,
  1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)-ethane and
  p,p'-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane depending on how you look at it.
)

Okay, so it's not by a scientist - or, at any rate, not by a scientist
willing to admit to it. [not quite true; see Ramesh's comment - m].
But no collection of science-related poems would be complete without at
least one limerick - they seem to be one of the most popular forms of
humorous verse around.

Of course, one of the reasons limericks are so popular is that they have a
relatively low entry barrier. Any fool can write a limerick - and,
inevitably, many do. Which means, naturally, that Sturgeon's Law applies in
spades, and a limerick has to be good, funny, clever or all three in order
to stand out.

Today's has achieved a reasonable measure of fame (translation: I'd actually
read it before I thought of the theme <g>), mostly for the clever way it
fits the (long) chemical name of DDT into limerick scansion - though with
some distortion (tri CHLO ro e THANE rather than TRI chloro E thane). Not to
mention the fact that 'chloro' doesn't quite rhyme with 'sorrow' (rhyne,
perhaps). Still, I like it - long chemical names have a lovely flowing
rhythm to them, and they aren't appreciated enough :).

Links:

  We've run one limerick before - it's not a form that really lends itself
  to great poetry <g>: poem #378

  If you'd really like to know about DDT:
    A picture, in living pseudocolour:
      http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/CHEM/DDT-st.gif

    Linked to from an extensive fact sheet:
      http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts35.html

  The theme so far: Poem #795, poem #797, poem #798, poem #800

-martin

From: rameshr@

Hello,
  A month ago (Poem #801, June 4th 2001) you had posted a limerick 
about DDT and attributed it to being of anonymous origin. I did a bit 
of searching and managed to trace the author. The author is the Late 
Dr. D. D. Perrin (Department of Medical Chemistry at the John Curtin 
School of Medical Research at Australian National University, 
Canberra). Dr. Perrin died three years ago. I managed to get in touch 
with his daughter- Cathy Oquist and she tells me that he composed the 
limerick sometime in the late 1950s for a competition in a scientific 
journal. He won the competition :-) and received a check and a 
certificate. The check was used towards buying a Webster's Dictionary 
which, his daughter says, is still at her mother's place. 

  Interestingly the limerick is said to have appeared in the "The 
Penguin Book of Limericks", E.O. Parrott, Penguin Books Ltd., 1984 
and I suspect that it has been listed under "Anonymous" (perhaps 
someone could verify this).

  Well, now that things are brought to a new light, it certainly does 
seem to mock the first line of your commentary :-)

Thanks,
RR

From: "JOEL LEIZER" <JLEIZER@>

I cannot understand the date attributed to this limerick.  If Dr.
D.D.Perrin claims to have written it in June 2001, he is plagerizing a
limerick I heard from my organic chemistry professor , Louis Satler in
1961.

From: Linda Death <Linda@>

Linda