Potrzebie

InBernard Krigstein's "From Eternity Back to Here!" (Mad12) the word "Potrzebie" made an earlyMadappearance, flying overBurt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr,and a caricature ofJacques TatiinMr. Hulot's Holiday.The issue is dated June 1954, the same month the 1953 Tati film had a U.S. release.

Potrzebie(/pɒtrəˈziːbi/;Polish pronunciation:[pɔtˈʂɛbʲɛ],thedative/locativecase form of the nounpotrzeba,"need" ) is aPolishword popularized by itsnon sequituruse as arunning gagin the early issues ofMadnot long after the comic book began in 1952.

Origin

MadeditorHarvey Kurtzmanspotted the word printed in the Polish language section of a multi-languaged "Instructions for Use" sheet accompanying a bottle ofaspirin.Kurtzman, who was fascinated with words he found unusual, decided it would make an appropriate but meaningless background gag. After cutting the word out of the instruction sheet, he made copies and used rubber cement to paste "Potrzebie" randomly into the middle ofMadsatires.

Appearances

Potrzebiewas first used in a story inMad#11 (May 1954), where it was the exclamation of a character who spoke only in foreign languages and song lyrics, in "Murder the Story", a parody illustrated byJack Davis.It was used again inBernard Krigstein's "From Eternity Back to Here!" inMad#12 (June 1954) on an airplane advertising banner. With the same type font, it reappeared in Jack Davis's "Book! Movie!" inMad#13 (July 1954), pasted into a panel as the title of an abstract painting seen in the background. In the same issue the word appears as POTS-REBIE, emblazoned on a cauldron in which Robinson Crusoe is roasting a frankfurter. This piece reappeared in one of the earliestMadpaperbacks,Bedside MadIt was illustrated as arebusin "Puzzle Pages!" inMad#19 (January 1955). These stories, like others inMadcomics, were written by Harvey Kurtzman. Frequent repetition gave it the status of acatch phraseorin-jokeamong the readership which continues to the present day. In the firstMad Style Guide,edited byBhob Stewartin 1994, the word was made available for display on T-shirts and other licensedMadproducts. It also sees occasional use as ametasyntactic variablebyhackers.

Fourth appearance of the word inJack Davis's "Book! Movie!" (Mad#13)

A typical appearance of the word is exemplified by theMadversion ofChaucer'sCanterbury Tales(fromMad#43, December 1958), which begins:

"Whon thot Aprille swithin potrzebie,

"The burgid prillie gives one heebie-jeebie.

System of measurement

In issue 33,Madpublished a partial table of the "Potrzebie System of Weights andMeasures",developed by 19-year-oldDonald E. Knuth,later a famedcomputer scientist.According to Knuth, the basis of this new revolutionary system is the potrzebie, which equals the thickness ofMadissue 26, or 2.2633484517438173216473 mm,although the eighth digit was mistakenly dropped and the thickness appeared as 2.263348517438173216473 mm in the MAD article. A standardization in terms of the wavelength of the red line of the emission spectrum ofcadmiumis also given, which if the 1927 definition of the Ångstrom is taken for the value of that wavelength, would equal 2.263347539605392 mm.

Volume was measured in ngogn (equal to 1000 cubic potrzebies), mass inblintz(equal to the mass of 1 ngogn ofhalavah,which is "a form of pie [with] aspecific gravityof3.1416and a specific heat of.31416 "), and time in seven named units (decimal powers of the average Earth rotation, equal to 1"clarke"). The system also features such units aswhatmeworry,cowznofski,vreeble,hooandhah.

According to the "Date" system in Knuth's article, which substitutes a 10-clarke "mingo"for a month and a 100-clarke"cowznofski",for a year, the date of October 29, 2007, was originally rendered as" Cal 7, 201 C.M. "(for Cowznofsko Madi, or" in the Cowznofski of MAD "). The dates are calculated from October 1, 1952, the date MAD was first published. Dates before this point are referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as" B.M. "(" Before MAD. ") Later Knuth preferred 0-origin inde xing,so October 29, 2007 is now rendered as "Cal 6, 201 C.D." (for Cowznofsko Dimentii, with "mad" also translated into Latin). The ten "Mingoes" are: Tales (Tal.) Calculated (Cal.) To (To) Drive (Dri.) You (You) Humor (Hum.) In (In) A (A) Jugular (Jug.) Vein (Vei.)

Google CalculatorandWolframAlphacan both perform conversions from the potrzebie system to other units.WolframAlpha uses the originally printed value of a potrzebie, while Google Calculator appears to use a value rounded to 5significant figures.As such, the two sites may not compute identical results.

See also

Wiktionary: furshlugginer

External links

• The Dual Role of Bob Brookmeyer:Jimmy Raney's "Potrezebie" (sic)
• Salon:"The Art of Don E. Knuth" by Mark Wallace
• Potrzebie System on Google Calculator