Archive for Double Dactyls
Another chat with ChatGPT. This time, I asked it for a one-stanza parody of “The Raven.” It replied: Once upon a midnight dreary, As I pondered, weak and weary, There came a knock upon my door, From a creature, small and poor, Who begged for just a little more Of the bread and cheese I […]
I'm always amused by jokes and rhymes and poems that go in loops. For instance, when I was a kid, my father told me, "Pete and Re-Pete went out in a boat. Pete fell overboard. Who was left?" I answered, "Re-Pete," and he of course said, "Pete and Re-Pete went out in a boat..." Along […]
Piggledy-higgledy, William A. Spooner was known for his penchant for mixing things up. When hungry, the Reverend ate mobster in lint sauce; when thirsty, he drank from an old cuter pup. —JEH Reverend William A. Spooner was at one time the Dean of New College, Oxford. He occasionally mixed up words, or parts of words, […]
"Wight" provides another political double dactyl: Higgledy Piggledy Adalai Stevenson lost it to Dwight and be- came quite bereft. He had his platform and uncompromisingly put himself just too damn far to the left. This has a couple of minor scansion problems, like the extra syllable in "Adlai," but I thought it made a nice […]
Recall from column d that a double dactyl is a poem of roughly this form: Higgledy Piggledy First name and last name here, Then something clever on What he/she did. Stanza two uses a Hexasyllabicword; Finish it up with a Topper or lid. —JEH The word "dactyl" derives from the Greek word meaning "finger" (as […]
Dominus, who can usually be counted upon to provide a comment, wrote: Higgledy-Piggledy isn't his favorite— too many syllables, not enough length. Mark-Jason Dominus can't do them anyway; metric analysis isn't his strength. —Mark-Jason Dominus Ranjit Bhatnagar wrote to say: "I once tried to combine the venerable Higgledy-Piggledy form with the equally well-respected Ten-Word Story, […]
I've long had a fondness for certain poetic forms oft-derided as doggerel. One of my favorite such forms is the Double Dactyl, also known as the Higgledy Piggledy. A dactyl is a poetic foot which consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. Words like "turpitude," "menopause," and "aspirin" are dactylic—their stress pattern […]