[WikiEN-l] WP:V strikes again!

[Gwern Branwen]

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Al Tally <majorly.wiki at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 3:20 PM, Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2009/05/18/090518po_poem_frazier
>>
>> "And so, at last, I am turning forty,
>> In just a couple of days.
>> The big four-oh.
>> Yes, that is soon to be my age.
>> (And not fifty-eight. No way. That Wikipedia is a bunch of liars.)
>> Nope, not any other age, just forty.
>> What other age could someone born in 1969 (and not 1951)
>> Possibly be?
>> (And please do not listen to my ex-wife, that sad, bitter woman in her
>> late fifties.)
>> What does it feel like, old bones?
>> Yes, I have lost a step or two in the hundred-metre dash.
>> I accept these changes.
>> But if a guy says in a published poem that he is forty,
>> As I am doing here,
>> It’s obvious that must be the age that he is,
>> Officially."
>>
>> --
>> gwern <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>
>>
>
> So is he 58 or 40? His article currently says he was born in 1951, but
> there's no reference.
>

Erm. Isn't it pretty clear he's 58? The whole poem is him humorously
denying that he's 58 and pretending to a youthful 40.

The reason I posted it is because he's clearly gently mocking
Wikipedia's policies on published material. 'If a guy says in a
published poem that he is 40...obviously that must be the age that he
is [despite all the other evidence that he's 58]'

-- 
gwern