.OP
.PO 39

        Elegy to an Engineer's Sweetheart




Verily, I say to you, marry not an engineer;
For an engineer is a strange creature possessed
     of many evils;
Yea, he speaketh eternally in parables, which
     he calls formulae;
He wieldeth a calibrated stick which he calls
     a slide rule, and his Bible is a handbook;
He thinketh only on stresses and strains and
     without end on thermodynamics;
Hå  showetè onlù á seriouó aspecô anä seemetè noô
     tï kno÷ ho÷ tï smile;
Neither does he know a waterfall except by its
     power, nor a sunset except that he must
     turn on the lights, nor a damsel except
     by her live weight.
He carries always his books with him and enter-
     taineth his sweetheart by the steam tables.
Verily, though his damsel expecteth chocolates
     when he calls, she openeth the package to
     find ore samples.
Yea, he holdeth his damsel's hand but to measure
     the friction thereof.
His kisses are to test viscosity, and in his eyes
     there shineth a faraway look, but neither
     that of love or longing-rather a vain attempt
     to recall the formula.

The one letter he yearns to receive is an "A".
When his damsel writeth of love and signeth with
     "X"'s, he taketh not these symbols for kisses
     but of unknown quantities.
Even as a small boy he pulleth girls' hair to test
     it's elasticity;
As a man he discovereth different devices, for he
     would count the vibrations of her heart-
     strings and reckon the strength of her materials
Lo I say to you, marry not an engineer;
The accountant may consider you surplus stock;
The musician may think you to be a discord;
The journalist will ponder your errors in style;
But oh, far worse is the engineer-
     for he will plot the intensity of your love as
     a function of time on 3-cycle semi-logarithmic
     paper.



           Reprinted from Dis'n'Data
           a NU Engineer Publication
Š