In a message dated 8/30/01 12:24:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jimgilmer@alaweb.com writes: << You gotta remember in the old days all that copying was done by hand!!!! No scanners, copy machines, etc. Easy to make a mistake in transcribing for the extra copies they had to make!! >> This reminded me of a joke I think you'll enjoy. I found this version on the internet from a Prairie Home Companion joke website http://phc.mpr.org/activities/19990410_jokeshow/jokes/0405_10.htm I heard a different version. .. Started out in Middle Ages monastery with young monk being asked by older priest to recopy copies of recopied. Young monk8 questions something, so priest goes to bowels of the monastery to find the original, and is later discovered by worried young monk in the same state as the pope below.. Hope you enjoy it. Janet Hunter The Pope dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates and begins telling him that he was the most holy man who had lived in a long time. "And since you've been so good, we're going to give you the premium package to heaven. You want an audience with God, you've got it. You want to talk to somebody, you've got it. Is there anything else I can do for you?" he asks. "Well," the Pope says, "Do you have a library here? There are some inner issues I want settled, you know, what God really said to people." "Sure," said St. Peter. "It's right over there."So the Pope goes into to the library, and he has a wonderful time. He starts looking through all the books, exclaiming over this and that. A little later there is a horrible racket coming from the library. The angels rush in, and the Pope is throwing books around, breaking chairs and screaming "It had an 'R'! There was an 'R'!" The angels come up to him, and say, "Pope, what's the matter?" He looks over at them and says, "It had an 'R'! It's celeBRATE!" Other version -- http://members.tripod.com/~LordMidknight/humour/mon.html In a remote monastery . . . a new monk arrived to dedicate his life and to join the others copying ancient religious documents and records. The first thing he noticed was that they were copying by hand from books that had already been copied from earlier copies by hand. He had to speak up. "Forgive me, Father Justinian, but copying other copies by hand allows many chances for error. How do we know we aren't copying someone else's mistakes? Are they ever checked against the originals?" Father Justinian was startled! No one had ever suggested that before. "I will take one of these latest copies down to the vault and study it against the original document." So Father Justinian went deep into the vault where no one else was ever allowed to enter, found the original source, and started to study. The day passed, and it was getting late. The old man had even missed the evening meal. Finally a senior monk went down into the vault to find the old man and as he approached the reading room, he heard sobbing, deep gasping sobs. "Father Justinian?", he called. "Are you alright?" The old priest raised his tear stained face. "Oh, my Lord," cried Father Justinian as he pointed a palsied hand to the two books, the ancient text and the most recently copied copy, " the word is not 'celibate', it's 'celebrate'