I discovered this little poem tucked away in a folder on my old computer backup disk. Seemed useful enough to share.

During a period of sixteen months - April 1878 to September 1879 - the famous American author Mark Twain made a journey through Europe. In his book "A Tramp Abroad" (1880) there is a very funny appendix called "The Awful German Language". After twenty years living in Germany I can empathize with the insights Mark Twain expressed so eloquently - and humorously - in this brilliant essay.

Did you know technical writing had its origin in the ancient city of Babylon. The primary documentation tool for Babylonian technical writers was a device known as the the *iClay™* tablet. And if their libraries burnt down their documentation was baked even harder and would be preserved for millennia. Would that our profession today had such a long shelf-life. Would anyone several millenia from now have a clue what we did today? Could they read the bits stored in memory on a thousand data farms uncovered in the sands of once prosperous San Francisco?