The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'

The below is an excerpt form a book on AI I read on and off. This excerpt is from the beginning of a chapter on Lisp
language. Every now and then, when I happen to glance at the following lines, I exactly know why George F Luger(Author of this AI textbook) included it in the chapter for Lisp. And that is: Lisp is about recursion (at least for me, I have mostly used Lisp for programming need where recursion had to have an upper hand in accomplishing the task on hand.)

These lines(once you read) keep "Alice" correcting herself because every time she re-refers to the "name of the song" the knight corrects her with a new name...and it goes on until the correct name is surfaced.

And that's what recursion is about...:) I understand recursion well to understand the gist of the following lines(really the following lines after the period on this sentence) from the play? called "Through the Looking Glass.

"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it? Alice said, trying to feel interested.

"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man.'"

"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.

"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means':but that's only what it's called you know!"

"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.

"I was coming to that," the Knight said.

---Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass


~Nirmal