From the "Stop me before I kill again!" dept:

Helpity yelpity
Grandfather Ticking Clock
Stop me from endlessly
Searching for rhyme,

Wasting the day I just
Duodactylify
Wounding Eternity
By killing time.

Your DD my DD,
WordCrafter Britton, you're
Fatally smitten in
Dactyllic terms

With what Teutonic
Protogermanicists
Lacking a better word
Labelled "ear worms."

Oh, Dave, I've been waiting for this thread to be exciting again. Thanks! Yours are just great. I suspect this isn't the first time you've written DDs.

I remember visiting my good friend Jerry in Hawaii, and he had some guests over. With a twinkle in his eye, he leaned over and whispered to me, "Please note that (I can't remember the friend's name now) has a perfect DD name." Remember that, Jer?

Yorkily Yorkily
Wordcrafter David B.
Joined our community
With lots of zest!

Dactyls he's good at, and
Now I am wondering,
Exhilaratedly,
Where are the rest?

Kalleh my friendly neighbor's double-dactylic name is Werner Van Heidendahl.

Oh, yes! We had fun with that, didn't we?

My workplace is double-dactylic. I've come up with many fun ones about it!

Democrat President
Franklin D Roosevelt
Conquered Depression
With obvious zeal.

Surrounded by Panic
Neopolitically
Offered his countrymen
Quite a New Deal.

Nice, Jer.

I was raised in a very conservative Republican family who thought Roosevelt was a demon. It took me a lot of years to realize the truth.

Higgledy Piggledy,
Yale University's
William F. Buckley has
Recently died:

Sesquipedalian,
Neoconservative,
Brilliant, although he was
Not on my side.

William was way too conservative for me, but you had to respect his language skills. And to think I could have used "octogenarian," too! I tried, but it didn't make much sense.

higgledy piggledy
William Claude Dukenfield
Tosses his name in to
See what it yields.

Raconteur, juggler,
Well known comedian,
Talented gentleman,
W C Fields

The Cubs are on fire! They have the second best record in all of baseball!

Yet, we longtime Chicagoans know the drill.

Higgledy Piggledy
Cubs of Chicagoans,
Darlings on Addison,
Losing's their fate.

Uber-long-suffering
Fans are impatient cuz
Cubs haven't won it since
1908!!!!!

Higgledy Piggledy
Cubs of Chicagoans,
Darlings on Addison,
Losing's their fate.


Fans are impatient cuz
Semi-professional
Cubs haven't won it since
1908!!!!!

Go Red Sox
-... .... -.

Oh my. A Red Sox fan.

I am not worried about the Red Sox. It'll be the LA Angels.

Something will happen to the Cubs, though, either in the World Series or in the play-off games. The goat is still around. There will be a Buckner's between-the-legs error or a Steve Bartman fan interference or something. We all know it and are prepared.

[Edited for typo]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh, August 15, 2008 21:05

Nothing to do with DD but can anyone explain why, after winning the World Series with facial and head hair, traded Red Sox players are required (I'm too polite to say forced) by their new teams to either shave faces or shorten hair length.

Sorry for the typo, Jer. I've edited the post.

,,,, and I've deleted mine.

In that context I wouldn't know a typo if I saw one. It was the between-the-legs thing that got to me ......

Oh, I am sorry. It's actually very convoluted, because the error (ball going between the legs) actually happened to the Red Sox, and not the Cubs. However, because Buckner had been with the Cubs, and because he had worn a Chicago Cubs batting glove underneath his fielding mitt during a crucial World Series error, the Cubs fans feel that's part of their curse of not winning.

I think you had to be there...

At least I was too polite to point out your (er). . . oversight.

-. --- .-. .. -.. ... --- .--. -... .... -.

I don't get it, Proofreader. I just went over my meter again, and it seems right.

humpety dumpety
Alice in Wonderland
Seeing celebrities
Falling from things

Says no denying
Repairs are defying
Icontrovertible
Powers of kings.

higgledy piggledy
Daniel Q. Webster, a
wordlist collector
primitive nerd
forerunner of us
para-graphologists
eternally always
seeking the Word

Higgledy piggledy
Paddy O'Furniture
Irish expatriate
From Galway Bay

Always exhibiting
Celtikethnicity
Knew how to celebrate
Saint Patrick's Day.

Nice!

Higgledy Piggledy
Cubs of Chicagoans
Got us excited for
Winning it all.

Now in the play-offs they've
Un-blanking-lievably
Lost the first two and they
Surely will fall!

First the debate, then the "bailout," and now the Cubs! They finally had a chance to get to the World Series (only after 100 years!), but now they have blown the first two home games! One more and they're toast!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh, October 03, 2008 21:43

Err, the Cubs were in the World Series seven times after 1908, in 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, and 1945. They lost all seven.

the Cubs

Totem < Ojibwa -oode- 'totem', e.g., odoodem 'his totem', nindoodem 'my totem'.

Val, yes, you are correct. However, you can't win in the World Series if you don't get there (unfortunately for the Cubs).

Not sure I get what you're saying, z, though I do note that it's your state's team that is mauling our Cubbies.

Who can possibly count all the dubs,
The unending, increasing mass flubs;
The errors and blunder
That’s tearing asunder
The mistake-prone, the inept, the Cubs.

8-( Sorry my dactylic abilities are wanting.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Proofreader>, October 05, 2008 07:23

You are right, of course. The games were horrible. As my friend used to say of our local high school's basketball team, "They had no offense and no defense, but otherwise they weren't that bad.

Still, many Chicagoans are just crushed, myself included. They had done so well all season, and simply threw the games at the Dodgers. None of us can figure out what happened.

I do note that it's your state's team

Shows what I know; I thought the Trolley Dodgers were from Brooklyn.

Um hmmm...And the Pope's Jewish.

Reviving a thread

I go through periods where I can't write a DD or a limerick to save the queen. However, I have been feeling the urge of late. Indeed, I started a presentation the other day with a limerick and the group loved it.

Today I read this article by one of my all-time, least favorite reporters. His use of the word "Mephistophelean" was my stimulus for this DD.

(Context: He may be right about this ex-alderman; I haven't made it my business to stay on top of the case. I do know, though, that Kass consistently rushes to judgment about guilt, which drives me nuts. The media has taken to doing that in the U.S., and you'd think we didn't have courts or trials. The media believe that no one is innocent until proven guilty, and when defendents get a light sentence...or, God forbid, are acquitted...the judge is tainted, too.)

Given that context, I sent this DD to my all-time least favorite reporter:

Higgledy Piggledy
Eddie Vrdolyak
Harshly is judged by re-
Porter John Kass

Kass says the alderman's
"Mephistophelean"
(Bet the word's meaning's not
Known by this ass!)

(His name is just too easy!)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh, February 27, 2009 11:40

Shu brought this up, but I think he's right. Here was Kass's sentence using Mephistophelean: "I've known him for years, fascinated by this highly charismatic, yet dangerous Mephistophelean who spent his life leveraging political power the Chicago Way." He's using it as a noun. Wouldn't the correct word be "Mephistopheles?" Isn't "Mephistophelean" an adjective?

Challenge to wordsmiths: render presidential hopefuls in dactylish verse. My first rusty attempt:

Higgledy Piggledy
Speaker Newt Gingrichy
Shines on the crowd with his
learned bon mots

Students, please note that Newt
oft drives a sharp point home
bocapedically,
his favorite pose

Gonna have to give me some names.

Thanks for the challenge, Bethree! With a few days off coming up, I'm going to try. Bob is right, though, it's the name that is hard. Recently Shu and I realized that "geopolitical" is one of those great 6 syllable words. Now for the name!

As you saw in another thread, our daughter recently got married. Had she taken her new husband's last name (which she didn't), she would have had the perfect DD name: Catherine Anderson. Oh well.

Higgledy Piggledy
Catherine Anderson
Isn't: she chose to keep
Moniker same.

Patronymically
A shufitzkalleh rose
Smells just as sweet, per Will:
'What's in a name?'

Awww...thanks. Here is one I wrote previously.

Higgledy Piggledy
Sir Halford Mackinder
Formed a big theory; in
England he wrote

All about navies and,
Geopolitically,
Thought they weren't needed, so
That floats his boat!

The stress must be on the "Mac" for this work. And, even then...

Shu's Catherine Anderson DD:

Higgledy Piggledy
Catherine Anderson
Has a nice ring, but when
Put to the test,

Catherine felt (very
Characteristically)
Philoprogenerative
"Spector" was best.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Bob is right, though, it's the name that is hard.

Actually I mean that as a non-American I have no idea at all who the presidential hopefuls are.
Or what they stand for.
Or the degree of their likelihood of success.

Or indeed anything whatsoever about them.

Give me a name and I can Google the rest and work on it. No names no dactyls. (A pun so private that only me and my brother could possibly understand it!)

Oh, I meant it for all DDs, Bob, not just presidential hopefuls. The name is, by far, the hardest part.

Inspired bythis thread:

Higgledy Piggledy
Good Old St Nikolas:
His gold coins saved maids from
Male pokes and grabs

Practical St Fiacre
Taxidermistically
Healed bumsores gotten from
Sitting in cabs

Let's have some more...and they don't need to be about American politicians, Bob. They can be about anyone!

quote:

(A pun so private that only me and my brother could possibly understand it!)

I assume it's a pun on the army phrase "no name, no packdrill". I don't know if it's a British army thing, or whether it extends to the US army as well.

Higgledy Piggledy
Rod R. Blagojevich
Fortieth governor
Of Illinois.

Characteristically
He is in jail now,
Fourth since the seventies
We just say “Oy!”

Lookity Bookity
Lawrence, the Saintly One
guarded church treasures
the old and the new.

Iconoclastically,
he just misplaced one
the grail's been missing, 'tis
long overdue.

So he didn't become the patron saint of librarians because the Romans threw the book at him.

So St. Lawrence by Romans was tried
For an answer they thought was too snide.
As he sat in the fire
He paused to inquire,
"Am I baking, or char-broiled, or fried?"

Nice DD, CW!

I'd love to see us get into these more. Ironically, on OEDILF my DD limerick, which had been sent in a long time ago, was criticized by someone so it is in discussion. Here it is:

To write one that's right is a plight;
That dactyl that's doubled's not trite!
The irony is,
In the dactyly biz,
To create this light verse is a fight!

Explanatory Note: Writing a double dactyl isn't easy. The meter is more prescribed than with limericks. The first 3 lines of each of 2 stanzas are dactylic dimeter; the last line of each stanza is a choriamb. Lines 4 and 8 rhyme. In line 5, 6, or 7 there should be a 6-syllable word that meets the prescribed meter.

With all the discussion about it, I've decided to add a piece in the explanation about needing to have a double dactly name. I think that's crucial for these verses, and I can't believe I left it out.

Higgledy Piggledy
Thomas A. Edison
Helped the Americans
Turn their lights on.

Exasperatedly
Other inventors lost
Out in the press, such as
Sir Joseph Swan.

Higgledy Piggledy
President Candidate
Willard Mitt Romney said
Russia's the worst !

Geopolitically,
Hillary Clinton says
That's really bunk and shows
Mitt's not well-versed!