The Love Song of the Physical Anthropologist
words & music by Tom Lehrer
Let me tell you of
The mammal that I love,
She's lovely, she's charming, she's divine.
That ectomorphic, hypsicranial, rufipilous, leptorrhinian
Metriocephalic gal of mine.
Oh, the touch is grand
Of her pentadactyl hand,
She's my mesoprosopic valentine.
That eurypellic, orthorachic, brachydontic, stenomeric,
Dolichocnemic leptosome of mine.
Though you might wish this chordate
Instead of mine were your date,
You haven't got a chance, its plain to see,
For nothing is more alien
To this marvelous mammalian
Than affection shown to anyone but me.
Oh, her eyes are blue
(And they're oxybleptic too),
She's endothermic, and that suits me fine.
That eurypellic, orthorachic, brachydontic, stenomeric,
Bathycolpian, leiodermatous, callipygian, platyhieric,
Ectomorphic, rufipilous, leptorrhinian
Metriocephalic little gal of mine.
[Note: This song was prompted by the observation that all love songs that actually describe any physical aspect of the beloved limit their compliments to such things as hair, eyes, lips, hands, etc. Physical anthropologists, on the other hand, have a whole arsenal of descriptive adjectives at their disposal.]
