“The probability of one chimp constructing a random sentence (from Shakespeare) comes in at one in 10 million billion billion, the research indicates.”
—BBC
Dear colleagues,
It is with a heavy heart and more than a chest thump full of frustration that I deliver some tragic news: our Grand Chimpanzee/Monkey Shakespeare Typewriter Experiment, more commonly referred to as GC/MSTE around the university, is under fire in the media.
Apparently, it has something to do with a report by two Australian mathematicians who have called into question the “infinite monkey theorem.” According to their statistics, it is more likely to see someone struck by lightning while falling out of a plane and being bitten by a shark, mid-air, than to have one of our tree-swinging scribes randomly write a simple Bard-inspired sentence like “I chimp, therefore I am.”
That’s the bad news. The good news is our dreams can still happen. Let’s not forget recent successes: Robert’s proposal to provide our writers with Harry Potter glasses and sweaters with elbow patches to boost their morale. We could have never – let me repeat that – never have anticipated their corresponding requests for pipes and single malts would cause a messiness in the typing which would scotch any progress. Let’s also not forget Edith’s marvelous contribution a few years ago. Does everyone remember how elated our writers were when they were finally able to work from home? It was pre-pandemic. We were ahead of our time.
And, yes, in the interests of full disclosure for our grant applications, we did have to note that it became harder for everyone to concentrate on the stanza when they were up there in the trees. The typewriter on a pulley system also did get a wee bit enraging when, every time the typewriter finally reached the canopy, they thought it would be funny to send it back down.
So, to ensure the future success of our program, the GC/MSTE board has decided to – pardon the phrase – “monkey around” with some of the research protocol. So far, we have made the typing experiment random. But, the thinking now goes, if we give our writers more structure and encouragement, and provide them with helpful prompts pulled from the pages of Shakespeare and tweaked to reflect their experience, then maybe they will all start writing in iambic pentameter like geniuses? While one in ten million billion billion might be long odds, one in ten million billion seems much more doable.
Here are a few of the proposed script starters for our writers:
“Shall I compare thee to a jungle day?”
“There is nothing either good or bad but feces throwing makes it so.”
“All the world’s a cage, and all the men and women merely up-right knuckle-walkers.”
“A monkeypox on both your houses!”
“To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to groom.”
“We few, we happy few, we troop of hominids. For he who sheds blood with me today shall be my hominid.”
“Now is the dry season of our discontent.”
“Look like the innocent flower, but be the primate under it.”
“She gave me for my pains a world of bananas. She said my tale was strange, ’twas passing strange. ‘Twas hairy, ‘twas wondrous hairy.”
“O Chimpio, O Chimpio? Wherefore art thou, Chimpio?
“All’s well that ends smell.”
“What fools these mammals be.”
“Exit, pursued by Leopard.”
Finally, for any future success we have, it will be imperative that none of our talented apes take credit for another talented ape’s work or writes under another talented ape’s name. If history teaches us anything, this will fatally obscure the entire ape canon for hundreds of years to come due to questions of originality.
Yours,
Dr. Jorge Goodall, Executive Director of the Grand Chimpanzee/Monkey Shakespeare Typewriter Experiment