So, we’re doing syntax in the English linguistics course I’m taking, and in today’s lecture, we went through the various ways of determining whether or not a string of words is a phrase or not — a mildly put important part of the whole syntax bit. One of the examples the lecturer used was the sentence “He wouldn’t describe the accident to the police” and compared it with the sentence “He didn’t describe the journey to the mountains” — sentences that are comprised of the same sequence of word categories, but have different structures. Anyhoo, during his demonstration of the “move things around a bit and see what happens” method, he presented us with the non-grammatical English sentence “The accident to the police, he wouldn’t describe”. This non-sentence, while not making sense in regular English, does however make sense if you view it in light of the concept of poetic syntax. It also has a certain rhythmicality to it, and so, naturally, it inspired me to write this poem:
The accident to the police
He wouldn’t describe;
One a previous occasion
He had tried them to bribe.
He had parked on a spot
Where he wasn’t supposed,
And to that idea
They were wholly opposed.
When a bobby came up
To protest the event,
To slip him a fiver
He was very hell-bent.
The bobby was outraged;
He arrested our guy,
Or that is, he tried;
He was punched in the eye.
In light of all this
One should not be surprised,
If the demands of the law
Our hero defies.
Posts
I say! That’s rather good! ^^ Only thing you should really do something about there is the sentence “To slip him a fiver he was suddenly hell-bent.” It sounds cumbersome and strange (in the non-rhytmical manner) and it begins with “To” like the sentence before it, but with different semantics, which makes it sound extra odd. Rewriting that particular sentence shouldn’t be too much trouble, and I believe it’d improve the thing considerably. In my eyes, anyway. ^^
10. April 2008 @ 21:24 ( Permalink )
Thanks! ^^
Also, thanks for alerting me to that sentence. I haven’t really bothered to change any of its actual phrasing, but I noticed I’d transcribed it wrong from the notepad I jotted the poem down on. Fixed that, but, alas, not the more imporant bit where “suddenly” has too many syllables to work very well….
I could simply replace it with a “very”, of course. Doesn’t change the meaning of the thing to any great extent, and eliminates the surplus syllable. Yeah, I’ll do that.
By the way, I have considered mailing this poem to the lecturer whose class inspired it, but haven’t quite decided what to do yet. After all, it seems a bit rude to mail him something which basically says, “Hi, I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to what you had to say today; I made this thing instead!
“
10. April 2008 @ 21:43 ( Permalink )
Email it to him. Worst case scenario, he’s uninterested.
10. April 2008 @ 21:50 ( Permalink )
Actually, worst case scenario, he gets pissed, and fails my second term paper. Which, ironically is about syntax.
10. April 2008 @ 21:56 ( Permalink )
Naw, he wouldn’t do that.
10. April 2008 @ 21:57 ( Permalink )
Naw, he seems like a nice enough fellow.
So, here’s a copy of the e-mail:
“Hi!
On pages 17-18 in today’s lecture notes, you used the example “He will never describe the accident to the police” to explain the constituency tests, and on page 18, you presented us with the non-grammatical sentence “The accident to the police, he will never describe”. While being non-grammatical, it has a certain catchy rhythm to it. This made me remember the concept of poetic syntax, which in turn inspired me to write a couple of lines more, continuing the narrative, and when I got home, I wrote the remaining 14 lines or so in about 15 minutes.
So, seeing as you’re kind of my muse here, I thought I’d be polite and share:
The accident to the police
He wouldn’t describe;
One a previous occasion
He had tried them to bribe.
He had parked on a spot
Where he wasn’t supposed,
And to that idea
They were wholly opposed.
When a bobby came up
To protest the event,
To slip him a fiver
He was very hell-bent.
The bobby was outraged;
He arrested our guy,
Or that is, he tried;
He was punched in the eye.
In light of all this
One should not be surprised,
If the demands of the law
Our hero defies.
Humbly,
a student who pays more attention in class than this e-mail would seem to indicate.”
10. April 2008 @ 22:11 ( Permalink )
Ah, shite, now I notice that I’ve messed up the beginning. Ah well. Nought to do about it.
EDIT: Not to mention all the typos… ye gods…
10. April 2008 @ 22:12 ( Permalink )
Donae worry, mate, it’ll be fine.
10. April 2008 @ 22:22 ( Permalink )
Me likes it. Would probably have done something about the ‘He tried them to bribe’ bit though, but seeing as you’ve already mailed it I can’t see much point to it. Still, nice bit o’ poetry there. Nothing at all like my own emo shite.
11. April 2008 @ 00:00 ( Permalink )
Heh, emo stuff, yeah.
Ah, Gods, I remember back when I wrote that kind of poetry. How despicably awful it was. But I guess it’s a phase most of us more or less intelligent guys go through, innit?
As for the “He tried them to bribe” bit, that’s actually an integral part of the piece. Not only does it instantiate poetic syntax again, it also, through that instantiation, contributes to emphasise the pseudo-meaning I’ve kinda interpreted into it in retrospect.
12. April 2008 @ 01:06 ( Permalink )
Yay, I’m not one of the more or less intelligent guys!
(I’ve written, like, ONE poem voluntarily in my entire life. True, it was twenty-odd pages long, but…)
12. April 2008 @ 02:35 ( Permalink )
Epic? Wow.
Trochaic hexametre, then? Or iambic pentameter?
12. April 2008 @ 02:51 ( Permalink )
Actually, I believe it was a pretty simple verse-form of four lines each, with the rhymes going a-B-a-B (being less strict with the a’s than the B’s, thus the capitalization)
It was more of a short story than a poem, despite its form, and I quite frequently ravaged both rythm and rhyme to accomodate the plot, I’m sad to say.
12. April 2008 @ 03:00 ( Permalink )