A buddy and namesake of mine has a father who is a literature scholar. He wrote his thesis on absurdist drama, Beckett and Ionesco, that sort of thing. This influenced his son's vocabulary. Once about 1970, when the scholar was out on a walk with his little boy in a stroller, they passed a large tractor and a group of people. The boy was greatly impressed by the tractor, pointed to it and exclaimed, "Absurd tractor!". The bystanders stared in amazement.
Aardvarchaeology
Absurd Tractor
A buddy and namesake of mine has a father who is a literature scholar. He wrote his thesis on absurdist drama, Beckett and Ionesco, that sort of thing. This influenced his son's vocabulary. Once about 1970, when the scholar was...
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Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
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Absurd Tractor
Category: Children • Humour
Posted on: October 3, 2010 8:20 AM, by Martin R
Comments
"Absurd Tractor" would make a great name for a progressive jazz combo.
Posted by: Anon | October 3, 2010 8:44 AM
"Absurd tractor!"
It has a ring to it.
Posted by: Art | October 3, 2010 3:19 PM
Father a literature scholar: "Absurd tractor!"
Father a physicist: "Fast tractor!" (Also possibly "Dark energy tractor!")
Father a chemist: "Combustible tractor!" (Cue nervousness on the part of the tractorist)
Father a teacher of Finnish: "Traktori perrrrkele!"
Father a mathematician: "A--- abacus?"
Father an applied mathematician: "A ball!"
I'll leave it to our host to supply what an archaeologist's child should say.
Posted by: Masks of Eris | October 4, 2010 3:52 AM
Haha! Dad a topologist: "Absurd donut! Or is that a teacup?"
Posted by: Martin R | October 4, 2010 3:56 AM
Your friend was a prodigy.
When I was an engineering student, we were given an excellent lecture by a mechanical engineer who explained how inherently unsafe the traditional farm tractor is. The way he explained it, it's like if you hate farmers and want to invent a device to kill as many of them as possible, you design the farm tractor.
No cab to protect the driver, just a little seat to perch on, two massive drive wheels on the back with very low gearing and a huge amount of torque, and a very hot exhaust pipe sticking up out of the engine compartment at the front. You apply too much power when the tractor is not pulling a piece of heavy farm equipment, especially when you are going uphill, and the tractor does a back flip, with the farmer underneath - he is either crushed by the tractor, or ends up pinned under the tractor in contact with the exhaust pipe. Or both.
Absurd design? From a safety point of view, yes, unless you can give lectures to all farmers about how to drive their tractors safely - in Australia, you don't need any kind of licence to drive a tractor off public roads. From a utility and cost point of view, it's fine, as long as you have an over-abundant supply of farmers - which is usually the case when a farmer has more than one son.
Posted by: Sandgroper | October 4, 2010 6:51 AM