Nerd Poetry

     The following poem appeared recently in Infocus magazine. The original authors were Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese of Calvin College & Seminary of Grand Rapids, MI.
     A poll conducted among Infocus readers had established "waka" as the proper pronunciation for the angle-bracket characters < and >, though some readers held out resolutely for "norkies."
     The text of the poem follows:

        <>!*''#
        ^"`$$-
        !*=@$_
        %*<>~#4
        &[]../
        |{,,SYSTEM HALTED

The poem can only be appreciated by reading it aloud, to wit:

        Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
        Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
        Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
        Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
        Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
        Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.