Thelonious my old friend
A sharp young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old tomes by hand. He notices, however, that they are copying copies, not the original books. So, the young monk goes to the head monk to ask him about this. He points out that if there were an error in the first copy, that error would be reproduced in every subsequent copy.
The head monk says, “We have been doing it this way for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.” So the head monk walks down into the cellar with one of the copies to proof it against the original.
Hours later, nobody has seen him. One of the monks goes downstairs to look for him. He hears sobbing coming from the back of the cellar, and discovers the old monk leaning over one of the original manuscripts, crying.
“What’s wrong?”
“The word was celebrate,” cries the old monk.