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Comment by Jeaye | Hacker News Reader

So, it was couped up in that apartment for a long time...

I do not hate fun, yet downvoted your pun; I agree that that's sad, but the pun is so bad! It's such a poor line that the sign seemed condign - of the delta it gives to your karma, that is.

My doggerel here merits no more excuse, but remains with intent that you feel no misuse; the lesson, I hope, you will find salutary, when next you should chance on the urge to make merry.

> condign

Thank you for teaching me a new word.

You're welcome!

Thank you for not letting me assume it was a typo.

Nice thing about verses, unless they're the worst, is the scan and the rhyme can in parsing save time; when a word fits the scheme, though unlikely it seem, it's been chosen with care for the meaning that's there.

(What did you think it was a typo for?)

> Nice thing about verses, unless they're the worst, is the scan and the rhyme can in parsing save time;

I remember someone mentioning that in the oral tradition - pre-literate stuff - rhyming was a sort of checksum to make sure that your story didn't drift too much with retellings.

A very good checksum. Even if the listener might not always be able to recite a saga or poem, she would likely be pretty able to detect a deviation from the standard telling.

I think the rhyming did not exactly prevent changes, but made patches obvious. Kinda like git and source control. :)

Oral tradition has been proven to be extremely stable under the right circumstances. Australia has tales about ancestral hunting grounds which have been lost to the sea for millennia.

https://www.sott.net/article/291976-Australian-aboriginal-st...

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