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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: bml@netcom.com (Brian Leibowitz)
Subject: editing letters (was: Ann Landers is snoped)
Date: Fri, 6 May 1994 17:59:20 GMT

Cecil rewrites letters also; I wrote a very polite letter to him explaining the source of a legend he mentioned. He rewrote my letter into a "Naaaa Naaaaa, you made a mistake!!!..." type letter.

Cecil wrote "You may recall reading some time ago that Russian Scientists were attempting to clone a mammoth from some preserved cells. Don't hold your breath"

this is the explaination I reprinted in my book on student pranks at MIT: (reprinted without permission from myself nor Technology Review)

Our Shaggy Elephant

     It all began more than a year ago in an MIT science writing 
     class. A talented undergraduate submitted for possible use in 
     Technology Review a beautifully written account of the discovery 
     in the U.S.S.R. of ova from a woolly mammoth frozen in arctic 
     ice.  This long-preserved material was eventually used, according
     to the account, to breed a mammoth-elephant hybrid called a 
     _mammontelephas_, from the Russian mammonth and the Greek 
     elephas, with a biological name Elephas pseudotherias. The 
     principals in this scientific achievement were said to be a Dr. 
     Sverbighooze Nikhiphorovich Yasmilov of the University of 
     Irkutsk and a Dr. James Creak of MIT.

     It took us a few hours to appreciate the skill with which 
     Diana ben-Aaron had turned an assignment in science writing into 
     a brilliant exercise in parody, and soon enough we resolved to 
     share ben-Aaron's achievement with our readers in celebration of 
     All Fools' Day. Hence the feature on page 85 of our April 1984 
     issue.

     But, as Robert Cooke, science editor of the Boston Globe, noted 
     in a front page feature late last summer, "Some folks there are 
     who cannot take a joke." For early last May we were startled to 
     find Diana's science nonsense taken seriously by the Chicago
     Tribune and subsequently by a number of other newspapers that 
     subscribe to the Tribune's syndicate service. Eventually Family 
     Weekly, a Sunday supplement distributed in over 350 U.S. 
     newspapers, carried the story. Meanwhile, this editor has sought 
     to explain the April Fool's Day tradition to a biologist at the 
     Chettiar Research Centre of Madras; and Charles Ball of the 
     MIT News Office found himself struggling to tell a Paris 
     journalist, "N'est pas vrai!" in his best French accent.

The original article included an explaination as to how they did the procedure, how the elephant has 56 chromosomes and the mammoth has 58, so the offspring are sterile (like mules).

It also explains why the offspring are sterile and explains the real origin of the phrase "once in a blue moon"; it is actually from _cum mula peperit_ - "when a mule foals."

Brian "All Tech men wear batteries" Leibowitz