Logomacy
Between logomachy and logomancy . . .

The Morning News - Camille Paglia, by Robert Birnbaum

Interesting interview, well worth the time to read, even if Birnbaum comes across as a bit of a twit. I might have to pick up her new book, Break, Blow, Burn.

hat tip: Tightly Wound

Poet: Ogden Nash - All poems of Ogden Nash

Sweet. I have a whacking great book with 650 of Ogden Nash’s poems, so it’s not that so much as poemhunter.com itself. I love sites like this. Ooooh, and you can comment on the poems if you wish.

Tip of the hat to languagehat

and writes a long, but interesting and amusing piece on it in Poetry, but misses the perfect chance to use the word materteral.

I maundered loathly as a clod
that blundered, high, toked to the gills
when all at once I said, My God!
I find I’m smoking daffodils!

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.)