Friday, February 02, 2007

Just For Fun

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. I can't make any sense of it" ~ Groucho Marx

Recent commenters on my blog posts have caused me to start thinking about the difference in writing styles. I consider myself an adequate writer, but there are many that are much better. ER, ELAshley, Jason Bowden, and Wordsmith come to mind.

Coincidently, ELAshley has posted a great example of his writing over at his place this morning.

Some bloggers use words that I literally have to look up in a dictionary, and still others write simply. I would place myself somewhere in the middle concerning verbosity. Sometimes wording an essay simply works better to get the point across.

So, just for fun, I took a little children's song, and rewrote it with what some people call "4 dollar words". Uneducated blogger points to those who can figure out what children's song I changed. Additional points awarded to those of you who can re write it better. Here it is:

Repeatedly propel, through means of external manual propulsion mechanisms, your transport, designed and manufactured specifically to convey humanoid bipeds with maximum buoyancy and expediency, effortlessly along the current of the naturally occurring flowing transparent solution. Ecstatically multiplied fourfold, Human Existence is merely a surrealistic hallucination.

Have fun!

14 comments:

Timothy said...

See Dick Run???
:)

Francis Lynn said...

Geesh - any 5 yr old child can tell it's "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."

Jim O'Sullivan said...

You've changed your template! I got confused for a second. I thought I was a tGateway Pundit!

Marshal Art said...

I got Row Your Boat as well. The last line was the give-away.

Jim said...

Merrily, "Buoyancy" did it for me.

Marie's Two Cents said...

Ha!


Row, Row, Row your boat is the only thing I could come up with too.

And some say "No child left behind" Isnt working? Yeah right!

Dionne said...

Well, I need help because I didn't have a clue. I suspect the other commenters are right about it being row, row, row your boat.

The WordSmith from Nantucket said...

Darn! I got "row, row, row your boat" as well, but wasn't the first to comment.

Additional points awarded to those of you who can re write it better.

It's actually a favorite of mine to explicate. Instead of rewriting it, I will just say that all of life's meaning, secrets, and mysteries can be summed up in those few lines. You have inspired me to write a post, revealing all.

Come galumphing over to my blog on Sunday if you want to know what this nursery rhyme really means.

Mark said...

Ha, Wordsmith! The word "Galumphimg" that you used was not a word until Lewis Carroll AKA Charles Dodgson, coined it in his poem, "Jabbewrwocky", in which he coined several words that are now part of the English language!

Here is the poem, from memory, I might add:

T'was brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch,
Beware the JubJub bird
And shun the frumious Bandersnatch.

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought.
so rested he by the TumTum tree
And stood a while in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came.

One, two, and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker snack!
He left it dead and with it's head,
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day, callou callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

T'was brillig and the slithy toves,
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

I know all the wortds to "The Walrus and the Carpenter", too, and there are 26 verses to that one.

Can anyone tell I'm a Lewis Carroll fan?

Mark said...

Oops. Just went to a web site and checked my accuracy. I left out a One two!...Well, I was close.

jhbowden said...

Today, I'll keep what I have to say short and sweet.

Go Bearss!

Erudite Redneck said...

Ha. Those aren't $4 words. It's just two-bit writing.


You really shou;d stop bragging about being uneducated, BTW. It makes you as boorish as those who put inititials behind their name to signal their eruditon.

Mark said...

ER, I am going to assume that you are being ruder than usual because of the stress you and your family have been going through lately.

So, I am not going to respond to your elitist insult.

I will say this, though:

I am still praying for your mother. You can talk all you like about trying to be like Jesus, but it is pretty apparent from your comment you don't really believe it.

Al-Ozarka said...

"You really shou;d stop bragging about being uneducated, BTW. It makes you as boorish as those who put inititials behind their name to signal their eruditon."

This from someone who continuously brags about his own questionable education and has it in lights in the header of his own space.

"Boorish"...LOLOLOL! what a laugh!