A limerick I found online

Stop me if you've heard it before...

[ronin]

(12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * (4^(1 / 2)))) / 7 + (5 * 11) = (9^2 + 0)

[ronin]

It begins:

A dozen, a gross and a score

[lucy24]

Second line: check
Third line: check
Fourth ine: check
Fifth line:
...
I’m stumped. (That is, the arithmetic works out, but I can't get it to either rhyme or scan.)

Edit: OK, I got the rhyme at the end, but still can’t get it to scan.

Years ago I read a jingle along the lines of:

Who of vodka distilled from potoooooooo partake, heed this warning:
You’ll be jolly at night but oooooooooooooo when you wake in the morning.

(Hint: the first number of o's is significant; the second isn’t.)

[coothead]

...and this is the second line...

plus three times the square root of four,

coothead

[coothead]

Edit: OK, I got the rhyme at the end, but still can’t get it to scan.

The last word of the rhyme is "more" if that helps.

coothead

[lucy24]

That's what I meant. I got the rhyme--“and no more”--but can't figure out the wording to get the beginning of the line to scan. I need a polysyllabic synonym for “equals”. “Comes out to”, perhaps?

[ronin]

In the original version I saw, the last line didn't scan as well, so in my head I made the last line:

Is the sum of nine squared and no more.

[coothead]

This...

"A dozen, a gross, and a score,

plus three times the square root of four,

divided by seven,

plus five times eleven,

is nine squared and not a bit more."

...scans for me.

But bear in mind that I am no expert.

coothead

[ronin]

Thank you for playing this week's episode of Arithmetical Limericks!

[Martin Potter]

I love it, a googol.

[lucy24]

Oh, “not a bit more”, now it fits together.

Trala!

[Martin Potter]

Thank you for playing this week's episode of Arithmetical Limericks!

Is it safe to assume that there will be more?

[ronin]

Is it safe to assume that there will be more?

Hah! No. That was the joke. That this definitely wasn't going to be any sort of recurring feature.

However. You have thrown down something of a gauntlet.

As I was writing this to say: "Don't worry, there won't be any more of these" another part of my brain was nagging me, saying: "No, come on, I reckon I can put one of these together.

So I did:

18 - (9 * 9^(1/2) / 3 / 9 + 4 + 4) = 9

[ronin]

The first two words of the first line are:

Nine times

[Martin Potter]

Guess I am just poetically challenged. Thought I had the last line metered until you gave us that "clue". Others no doubt get it, but maybe I belong in a lesser league with puzzles in binary.

[ronin]

Please do add your solution, @Martin_Potter. :D

(And anyone else who has a solution to propose...)

Then I'll add my intended solution.

Your solution might be even better than what I'd originally planned.

[lucy24]

The first two words of the first line

Funny, I make it the third and fourth words.

[tangor]

Hmmm... seemed to suggest I put on a Bad Company album and sit in the recliner with an ice bag on my head.

[ronin]

Hah! Everyone is being coy about their solution. Okay, I’ll write down my intended solution and you can all add your own take if you want to below (I’d really like to see what you came up with…!)

Nine times the square root of nine,
Divided by three and then nine,
Added to four,
And then to four more,
Subtracted from eighteen is nine.

Over to you. ;-)

[lucy24]

Ohhh.
But I still think it's cheating ;)

[Martin Potter]

How can anything that is arithmetically correct be cheating? And besides, it meters nicely. (Not to mention that it is better than anything I could come up with. Even in binary.)

[lucy24]

Even in binary.

Oh, I long to see a binary limerick.

[ronin]

1 10 100 110 1000 1010
1 10 100 110
101 111
1001 1011
1101110

[Martin Potter]

Aren't we supposed to see a face amidst the one's and zero's?

[ronin]

You can see Elvis, if you squint.

[tangor]

Not with my font choice! ^