The Story of Quadong
--------------------

A year ago, or so
I was at a scholastic bowl meet
(scholastic bowl is a sort
of trivia club for high school
people like me)
and one of the questions was
"what is the definition of
'ver sine (x)'"

I had no idea.  Nobody else
had a clue, either.

versin(x)=1-cos(x).
Did you know that?  I didn't. 

My friends and I were puzzled.
We said to each other
"what is this versin of which
they speak?"
We did not know, and so
could only ask Neumer, the 
omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent

god
of
math nerds.

So we asked.  We said "Neumer,"
"Neumer, what is versin?"

And Neumer responded "oh ho ho!"
and said "i do not know, 
inquisitive lad.  What is versin?"

And we told him.

and he said "that's the silliest
thing
I've ever heard!"

"that's like..."
and he grabbed the chalk

he wrote on the board, 
"quadong(x)=tan^2(x)-e"
And we were in awe.. what was quadong?

Was this like hypergeometrics? 
could we not yet know of this?
And Neumer
(the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent

god
of
math nerds.)

said
"you see!  versin is no more
relevant than quadong!"

and we loved quadong.  it was
everything silly and pointless about math
and it helped us forget about versin, 
and annoyances,
and from Neumer
(the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent

god
of
math nerds.)
we learned to live math as humans,
not as encyclopedias.
or something.

quadong became a rallying cry amongst
my circle
of friends.  Neumer
(the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent

god
of
math nerds.)
showed us a damn cool sounding
meaningless
pointless
absolutely silly
function.

What else could we do
but love it?

No one understands the quadong, 
though, outside of my circle of friends.
Sometimes people think
quadong=quad dong
which, although I might wish it so,
it does not.

Quadong is simply a Neumerism.
(the words of 
the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent

god
of
math nerds.)

and nothing more.