Ode to Excel for Robert Burns Day by ChatGPT

If you’re celebrating Robert Burns Day at the office today, here’s a poem that you can recite, before you dig into your first spreadsheet of the day. This Ode to Excel was written by ChatGPT, based on my prompts, and I hope you enjoy it!

Scottish Roots

My Dalgleish ancestors came to Canada from Scotland, way back in the 1800s, so my Scottish roots are a good excuse to celebrate Robert Burns Day!

We won’t have a traditional Burns Supper tonight though, because that meal starts with haggis, which is offal! (hehehe)

Note: Haggis imports were banned in Canada and the USA for 47 years, for safety concerns. Finally, a special “lungless” version was created, and that’s been allowed since 2017.

Address to a Haggis

The traditional Burns Supper starts with a recitation of Burns’ famous poem, “Address to a Haggis.” On the National Trust for Scotland website, the poem is described as celebrating:

the strength of the ‘ordinary’ working Scotsman (a haggis-fed Rustic) over those with more ‘continental’ tastes

There’s an annotated version of the poem on Wikisource, if you have the “stomach” for reading the gruesome details about the haggis ingredients!

And if you’d like to hear the Address to a Haggis, I’ve added a video at the bottom of this post. It’s performed by actor Gareth Morrison, in a lovely outdoor setting.

Of Mice and Men

Did you know that Robert Burns also wrote the poem, “To a Mouse”? You’ve probably heard this quote from that poem:

The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry

Of course, Burns’ poem is about a field mouse, not a computer mouse, but that also describes some days when you’re fighting with your spreadsheets!

ChatGPT Poetry

Now that you’ve learned more than you wanted to know about Robert Burns and haggis, here’s the poem that I prompted ChatGPT to write.

I asked Chat GPT to rewrite Robert Burns poem “Address to a Haggis” as “Ode to Excel”, and brag that Microsoft Excel is better than other computer programs.

It turned out better than I hoped, with a few not-so-subtle “burns” of the competition’s spreadsheets, and high praise for Excel’s awesome features.

I hope enjoy this Ode to Excel too, and Happy Robert Burns Day!

Ode to Microsoft Excel

Fair Excel, the pride of spreadsheets,
Above all others, thou dost excel.
Thy rows and columns, so neat and orderly,
Leave Google Sheets and Apple Numbers in misery.

Thy formulas and functions, so precise and true,
Leave OpenOffice and LibreOffice feeling blue.
Thy charts and graphs, so clear and grand,
Leave all other spreadsheets looking bland.

Thy data validation and conditional formatting,
Leave other spreadsheets gasping and huffing.
Thy VBA and macros, so powerful and divine,
Leave other spreadsheets in a state of decline.

Thou art the king of all spreadsheets,
And all other programs, thou dost surpass.
In Excel we trust, and in Excel we’ll stay,
For in Excel, we’ll never stray.

So here’s to thee, Microsoft Excel,
The one and only, the spreadsheet of excel(lence).

–by ChatGPT (prompted by Debra Dalgleish)

TIP: To learn more about Excel’s awesome features, be sure to visit my Contextures Excel website!

Video: Address to a Haggis

Here’s a video with Robert Burns’ Address to a Haggis, performed by actor Gareth Morrison.

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