Up or down
« previous post | next post »
Joe Heller's cartoon for 7/29/2016:
[h/t Jason Baldridge]
No matter your political preference, this is a very interesting, cool exercise in discourse structure. #linguistics pic.twitter.com/t9p64jxJDh
— Jason Baldridge (@jasonbaldridge) July 29, 2016
Sam Houston said,
July 31, 2016 @ 7:15 pm
Now that's comedy! I don't care who you are.
Karl Weber said,
July 31, 2016 @ 7:43 pm
Writings of this kind are sometimes called line palindromes. This article contains a fine example by wordplay master J.A. Lindon: http://www.english-for-students.com/Line-Unit-Palindrome-Poem.html
Viseguy said,
July 31, 2016 @ 7:55 pm
In other words, Hillary is facing an uphill battle, at least with the Trump-infatuated.
Roscoe said,
July 31, 2016 @ 7:58 pm
Another example: Douglas Hofstadter's "Crab Canon."
http://genius.com/Douglas-hofstadter-crab-canon-annotated
Viseguy said,
July 31, 2016 @ 8:02 pm
@Karl Weber: But here, the meaning is reversed going in the opposite direction. Perhaps it should be called a Palin-drome.
Max said,
July 31, 2016 @ 8:14 pm
It's not a line palindrome, since it doesn't read the same going up as it does going down.
Pflaumbaum said,
July 31, 2016 @ 8:28 pm
Very clever, but for me Hillary's version stops making sense in the middle:
Believe me,
we need to do something
crime, terrorists, illegals
you should be scared
That doesn't sound like Clnton's message in this campaign, it still sounds like the dark vision set out by Trump. Am I missing something? Is this section somehow meant to still be within the scope of "You'll never hear me say… "
Ben Zimmer said,
July 31, 2016 @ 8:30 pm
Note the credit to Chanie Gorkin, whose poem "Worst Day Ever?" inspired Heller's political version.
Ray said,
July 31, 2016 @ 10:05 pm
very clever!
the best line I've heard so far that captures the contrasts between hillary and donald: lisa vs bart
btw, this "depends-how-it's-read" technique has also been used horizontally:
http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Depaul-homeless-shelter-poster1-528×738.jpg
Uly said,
August 1, 2016 @ 2:07 am
If you like this sort of thing, you might like the picture book Mirror, Mirror. (There's two others by that author in that vein.)
Joke Kalisvaart said,
August 1, 2016 @ 4:54 am
I once tried to translated Chanie Gorkin's version to Dutch for my grandmother, who doesn't speak English. It was a nice exercise, but it turned out to be really hard, because subclauses in Dutch have a different word order than main clauses. I managed to make something grammatically correct, although sometimes a bit awkward, with the same meaning as the original, but it didn't really flow very well:
vandaag was de slechtste dag van mijn leven
zeg dus niet
er zit iets goeds in elke dag
kijk beter!
deze wereld is een slecht oord
zelfs al denk je
er schijnt wat goedheid doorheen
voldoening en tevredenheid duren niet lang
en dit is niet waar:
het zit allemaal in je hoofd
want
echte blijdschap kan worden verkregen
slechts als de omgeving goed is
het is niet waar dat goed bestaat
ik weet zeker dat je dit met me eens bent:
de werkelijkheid
creëert
mijn houding
ik heb er geen controle over
en je zult me nooit horen zeggen
vandaag was een goede dag
Smith said,
August 1, 2016 @ 9:20 am
And for those who remember Sarkozy v.2007 (as opposed to v.2016), this was eloquently doing the rounds back then, entitled "Entrée en Sarkozie" (Sarkozie being the wonderland we were stepping into).
A l'UMP, nous accomplissons ce que nous promettons.
Seuls les imbéciles peuvent croire que
nous ne lutterons pas contre la corruption.
Parce que, il y a quelque chose de certain pour nous:
L'honnêteté et la transparence sont fondamentales pour atteindre nos idéaux.
Nous démontrons que c'est une grande stupidité de croire que
les mafias continueront à faire partie du gouvernement comme par le passé.
Nous assurons, sans l'ombre d'un doute, que
la justice sociale sera le but principal de notre mandat.
Malgré cela, il y a encore des gens stupides qui s'imaginent que
l'on puisse continuer à gouverner
avec les ruses de la vieille politique.
Quand nous assumerons le pouvoir, nous ferons tout pour que
soit mis fin aux situations privilégiées et au trafic d'influences
nous ne permettrons d'aucune façon que
nos enfants meurent de faim
nous accomplirons nos desseins même si
les réserves économiques se vident complètement
nous exercerons le pouvoir jusqu'à ce que
vous aurez compris qu'à partir de maintenant
nous sommes avec Nicolas Sarkozy, l'homme de "la rupture tranquille".
Un morceau de bravoure…
Nathalie said,
August 1, 2016 @ 2:53 pm
I'm partial to this pronunciation myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJi3R1C22H8
Gwen Katz said,
August 1, 2016 @ 7:53 pm
Here's another horizontal example:
https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/s320x320/e35/12139615_1649597308635964_1250197689_n.jpg
Florence Artur said,
August 2, 2016 @ 1:21 pm
The Sarkozy text doesn't sound like it was written by a native French speaker. There are a couple of grating anglicismes (nous assumerons le pouvoir). At least they are grating to me, but I may be over sensitive about this stuff.
Frank Southworth said,
August 2, 2016 @ 3:52 pm
Love it!