Songs of Love & Grammar (& %*# - :@; etc.)*

From James Harbeck's book Songs of Love & Grammar:

Dim innuendos

A sweet musician in a bar said, "Boy, I think you're #."
I said, "Girl, you're a ♮, but I don't want to harp."
She said, "Well, here's the key so you can get into my ♭."
The rest of it I can't repeat, so I'll conclude at that.
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Sharp, natural, flat. I didn't think it would be wise to try to include a repeat typographically - it doesn't really work without the rest of the bar lines.
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Harbeck's book is filled with over 100 pages of delightful poetry that turn grammar and punctuation lessons into fun, little love ditties.

My only complaint is that the title is a bit misleading; there seem to be almost as many songs about symbols (see Dim innuendos above), signs, and abbreviations as there are about grammar, so I added to the title of this post * & symbols, signs, and abbreviations.

Either way, it is a highly entertaining book and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys having fun with language.

You can read more excerpts from the book at Harbeck's blog Sesquiotica, (which, by the way, happens to be one of my favorite blogs).

Also, make sure to check out Harbeck's Word Tasting Notes. These notes cover the visual aspect of words, how words feel in the mouth, the semantics and etymologies of words, and more. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Then and Than

I received the following image as Valentine's Day text message from a friend who loves Fireball. I'm not sure where it originated and I have been unable to find the image on line but it does provide the perfect set up for a review of the difference between then and than.

For example:

He drank some whisky and then he had dinner. He like the whisky better than the dinner.

Than is a subordinating conjunction used to relate a sense of comparison.

Then is an adverb which conjoins two acts by order of time of occurrence.

Which reminded me of this meme that was popular a while back.

Meme image via

Printed Texts or Digital Media

The Age of Books

Crated, carted, cast aside,
printed works have liquefied
in shocking bouts of bookicide.

The printing press is done, perhaps,
and publishers have (boom!) collapsed
to clicky gadgets, gizmos, apps.

Digital books are all the rage,
touchless paper, turnless page.

Stores are only cyber spaces,
cold, electric, faceless places.

Bookshops closed, bookshelves cleared,
paperbacks have disappeared.

The age of print has culminated,
finished, finis, terminated.

- Susan M. Ebbers

This was posted on Vocabulogic, a wonderful blog that focuses on words and language education from a linguistic perspective.

Humorize and Verborize

The Verbing of America

The verbing of America
Is getting out of hand,
Yet many nouns are also verbs,
Like toast and rake and land.
When I first heard hospitalize,
I thought it was a crime;
Why don't we apartmentalize?
We will -- just give us time!
If when we change a noun to verb
To come up with our `verbing,'
Why can't I, when I'm using herbs,
Refer to it as herbing?
For if I call myself a cook
, The verbal form is cooking;
And if I give someone a look,
It's also known as looking.
I give a gift
But I'm not gifting.
You get my drift,
Or am I drifting?
I get a bill
Because of billing,
But taking pills
Is never pilling.
I place a pin,
And I am pinning.
Play a violin --
Is it violining?
But play a fiddle,
And you're fiddling;
Or is this getting
Much too piddling?
Planting some seeds
Is always seeding,
And pulling weeds
Is surely weeding;
If drawing blood
Is always bleeding,
Why does a flood
Not lead to fleeding?
I'm wined and dined
But never beered.
I've eyed someone,
But never eared!
Turn on a light,
And I am lighting.
Turn on a lamp,
And it's not lamping.
If I can verbalize
A needle,
And egging on
Can mean to wheedle,
And I am doodling
With a doodle,
When I cook pasta,
Can't I noodle?
With all these punctuation marks,
I'm doing quite a lot of dotting;
But if I were to use a dash --
Don't you agree that I am dashing?
But comma-ing and period-ing?
And yet I can italicize
And sometimes must capitalize.
I Anglicize -- but Germanicize?
Or Swedicize, or Gaelicize?
With this I could go on and on,
Really ad infinitum;
Whether I lick these word problems,
I sure cannot beat 'em.
Our language is an enigma
In how its words are used;
And that is why, in verbing nouns,
We ought to be excused.

Credits to UPenn

Terrific Honorific Poetry

She frowned and called him Mr.

Because in sport he Kr.
And so in spite
That very night
This Mr. Kr. Sr.

– Anonymous

From Futility Closet

honorific: n. A title, phrase or grammatical form conveying respect, especially when addressing a social superior. - The Free Dictionary

Verbal Poetry

Excellent poem from Futility Closet.

One night an errant Werewolf fled His wife and child and visited A village teacher’s sepulchre And begged him: “Conjugate me, sir!”

The village teacher then awoke And standing on his scutcheon spoke Thus to the beast, who made his seat With crossed paws at the dead man’s feet:

“The Werewolf,” said that honest wight, “The Willwolf — future, am I right? The Wouldwolf — wolf conditional, The Beowulf — father of them all!”

These tenses had a pleasing sound, The Werewolf rolled his eyeballs round, And begged him, as he’d gone so far, Add plural to the singular.

The village teacher scratched his head; He’d never heard of that, he said. Though there were “wolves” in packs and swarms, Of “were” could be no plural forms!

There werewolf rose up blind with tears – He’s had a wife and child for years! But being ignorant of letters He went home thankful to his betters.

– Christian Morgenstern

Word Play Poetry

See if you can figure out what is going on in this outstanding poem I spotted on Farragoswainscot.com.

Argument With a Mirror
by Jeffrey Barnes

"Reality is what is."
"What is reality?"
"It is obvious."
"Is it?"
"There are observable laws."
"Observable? Are there?"
"Don't you see? I do."
"I see you don't."
"Science explains what we can know."
"Can we? What explains science?"
"It finds man what meaning life has."
"Has life meaning? What man finds it?"
"Anybody—for isn't it everywhere? Look—you see?"
"I see. You look everywhere. It isn't for anybody."
"How can you say that? Many know!"
"I know many that say you can? How?"
"How can we know? I know we can!"
"How?"
"Do you doubt 'I think, therefore I am?'"
"I, therefore, think I doubt you do."
"You are so contrary!"
"So are you."

In this "poem," every exchange of dialogue is palindromic at the word level—they read the same backwards as forwards. The man arguing with his reverse image sometimes intrudes into the other's domain, risking nasty cuts and seven years bad luck.

Phonemetry - The Schwa

Phoneme + Poetry = poetry about phonemes

A curvaceous young phoneme called schwa
Said "I never feel strong. It's bizarre!
I'm retiring and meek
And I always sound weak
But in frequency counts - I'm the star!"

from One Stop English

I saw this poem while looking for additional IPA resources for my students. I immediately fell in love with it and thought I would share it with my readers.

P.S. The portmanteau is my creation.

Put the Rhyme in the Syllable

If it wasn't for the internal structure of syllables, beautifully humorous poetry (the likes of below from Toothpaste for Dinner) would not be possible.

Onset...Nucleus...Coda_Onset...Nucleus...Coda_Onset...Nucleus...Coda

/p/....../o/..........Ø____Ø........./ə/.........Ø___/tr/........./i/........Ø

/n/....../o/..........Ø____Ø......../ə/..........Ø___/tr/......../i/.........Ø

Spell Checker Poetry

A wonderful example of why people should not rely on spell check programs.

Ode to My Spell Checker

Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marks four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word and weight for it to say
Weather eye yam wrong oar write.
It shows me strait a weigh as soon as a mist ache is maid.
It nose bee fore two long and eye can put the error rite.
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it,
I am shore your pleased to no.
Its letter perfect awl the way.
My checker told me sew.

- author unknown

This poem is a bit of an exaggeration these days as most spell checkers include grammar checkers so many of these homophonic spelling errors would be caught - it is still a fun poem though.