Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Tuesday, August 13th, 2004. And this is a week of limericks. I mentioned in yesterday's episode that the limerick was by nature a humorous poetic form or genre. but limericks can also be very practical.

And today we have two limericks that will demonstrate that.

The first is a very memorable mathematical equation by British mathematician Lee Mercer.

And the second is an anonymous limerick about an engineer who has

to do some quick thinking in a tight spot. Here's the first by Lee Mercer. A dozen, a gross,

and a score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times

eleven, is nine squared and not a bit more.

And I did the math. It checks out.

Here's the other bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpet.

A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpet, built a bridge for the good river, Bumpet. A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpet,

built a bridge for the good river, bump it.

A mistake in the plan left a gap in the span,

but he said, well, they'll just have to jump it.

This has been the Daily Poem.

Thanks so much for listening.

We'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you. In the meantime, visit us the Daily Poem. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you.

In the meantime, visit us at Daily Poempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes, subscribe, or support the show.

For all of us here at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson, wishing you happy reading.