Logomacy
Between logomachy and logomancy . . .

An Austrian army, awfully array’d,
Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade;
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Deal devastation’s dire destructive doom;
Ev’ry endeavour engineers essay,
For fame, for freedom, fight, fierce furious fray.
Gen’rals ‘gainst gen’rals grapple–gracious God!
How honors Heav’n heroic hardihood!
Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill,
Just Jesus, instant innocence instill!
Kinsmen kill kinsmen, kindred kindred kill.
Labour low levels longest, loftiest lines;
Men march ‘midst mounds, motes, mountains, murd’rous mines.
Now noisy, noxious numbers notice nought,
Of outward obstacles o’ercoming ought;
Poor patriots perish, persecution’s pest!
Quite quiet Quakers “Quarter, quarter�? quest;
Reason returns, religion, right, redounds,
Suwarrow stop such sanguinary sounds!
Truce to thee, Turkey, terror to thy train!
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine!
Vanish vile vengeance, vanish victory vain!
Why wish we warfare? wherefore welcome won
Xerxes, Xantippus, Xavier, Xenophon?
Yield, ye young Yaghier yeomen, yield your yell!
Zimmerman’s, Zoroaster’s, Zeno’s zeal
Again attract; arts against arms appeal.
All, all ambitious aims, avaunt, away!
Et cætera, et cætera, et cætera.

Bartlett’s has the source as “Miscellaneous,” but at least two other sites attribute it to Alaric Alexander Watts (1797- 1864) without quoting it in full. I first came across it in a slightly different form when I was about eleven in a book about puzzles and word play, and promptly committed it to memory. The version I learned was slightly different, lacking any J’s (I’m pretty sure that it’s not just my faulty memory, since I recall the accompanying text mentioning that J was the only missing letter), and with several other differences, e.g. the line for P being “Poor patriots, partly purchased, partly pressed” The Barlett’s text has a note, which suggests that the versions may have diverged quite early on:

These lines having been incorrectly printed in a London publication, we have been favoured by the author with an authentic copy of them. –Wheeler’s Magazine, vol. i. p. 244. (Winchester, England, 1828.)

I am Internally grateful to Language Log for introducing me to the concept of eggcorns.

Searching for eggcorns is indeed a hard road to hoe. Sometimes you need to “take another tact“: and learn to “tow the line.”

I’ve been thinking about poetic syntax in songs, and looking for good examples of novel (or at least unusual) constructions, and I’ve gotten hung up on a line from Cole Porter’s *Too Darn Hot*. How do you read the following?

According to the latest Report
Ev’ry average girl you know
Much prefers her lovely doggie to court
When the temperature is low

Leaving aside that I’m still stunned to find out that the original lyrics are “lovely doggie”, since every version I listen to regularly uses “lovey-dovey”, there’s something odd going on, at least to my ear. I think because of the break after court, I find it very difficult to hear it as an intransitive verb:
Every girl prefers her doggie to [court when the temperature is low]. (intransitive)
Until I started thinking about it I always parsed it as:
Every girl prefers [her doggie to court] when the temperature is low. (transitive, but reversed from the usual order as in “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”)

What do you think?