Funnel Rule 4 - The Abbot's Tale

[Paul Hollingworth <PH@4gm.com>]

We don't often post tales like this on the venerable old Den, but I 
thought I would make an exception for this short story, an excellent 
example of the funnel  experiment:

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A new young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the 
other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He 
notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not 
from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head Abbot to 
question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in 
the first copy, it would never be picked up. In fact, that error would 
be continued in all of the subsequent copies.

The head monk says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, 
but you make a good point, my Son."  So, he goes down into the dark 
caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscript is held in 
a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.

Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. Eventually, the young monk 
gets worried and goes downstairs to look for him. He sees the Abbot 
banging his head against the wall. His forehead is all bloody and 
bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.

The young monk asks the old Abbot, "What's wrong, Father?"

With a choking voice, the old abbot replies .....  "The word is 
celebrate".

======

;-)

PH

-- 
Paul Hollingworth                       4GM Consulting
email: PH@4GM.com                       http://www.4GM.com
phone: +44(0) 1423 322225               fax: +44(0) 1423 322205

[Moderator's Note:  Paul is correct about our informal policy to keep things more professional - but my
daughter is working in the UK for 2 weeks and I am not sure what kind of mayhem Paul might cause
if I do not post his Funnel tale...  ;-)   ]