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I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living
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fleurdelis28 said on Facebook, "Today's tongue-twister: 'Proper platypus plural.'"I said, "'All I want is a proper plural platypus . . .'"
She said, "I think this may need to be a song."
That was on Wednesday.
I walked home tonight from Lexington Center.
By the time I was turning up my street, I had nearly six lines out of ten and all the end-rhymes for the following:
All I want is a proper plural platypus
Keep your platypuses and your platypi
Let the monotreme decrying
Pseudo-Latin multiply in
Graeco-scientific equanimity
All I want is a proper plural platypus
It's that Hellenistic etymology
Disregard hypercorrection
Give a shout-out to inflection
Platypodes are the only things for me!
I need a geekier icon even than Hakkai. I'd have worked in "Ornithorhynchus anatinus," but I couldn't make it scan.
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Nine
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*if I used smiley emoticons, one of those*
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"Fair dinkum" cried he, and charged to the sea
what glory must being a platypus be
Yours is much better!
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what glory must being a platypus be
That's adorable!
Yours is much better!
Heh. Thank you!
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There's a moment in George Macdonald Fraser's The Pyrates where one character says "She's imprisoned naked in a cage over a pool of ravenous giant octopi--" and another man puts in, "Not 'octopi.' Sorry to interrupt, but it's Greek, not Latin. Octopods, octopodES, take your choice, but not octopi." This is like the logical and lovely extension of that conversation.
A platypus patter song that also pops to mind:
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2002/04/diplomatic-platypus-patrick-barrington.html
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Thank you! I'm not sure there was any other form a song with that first line could have taken.
(My post title was almost "We're often asked how we write these songs. We're often asked why, if it comes to that," but I've had Tom Lehrer on the brain lately, probably because of Ronald Searle.)
A platypus patter song that also pops to mind
"The bitterness of failure was considerably mollified,
However, by the ease with which our platypus had qualified."
Yay.
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It indeed a patter song, which means the tune is not much and very fast.
Thank you!
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I'm not sure it quite scans to the tune as I know it, but I'm flattered!
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I'd have worked in "Ornithorhynchus anatinus," but I couldn't make it scan.
I'm thinking I first heard said bit of Linnaean nomenclature as a small child, when it was used during an episode of Mr. Rodgers' Neighbourhood. Is this true, I wonder, or is it something my subconscious concocted? Or is it a sign that I did spend part of my childhood in an alternate universe?
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Thank you! See above: there is a tune, but it's mostly just there to give me something to do with the words.
Is this true, I wonder, or is it something my subconscious concocted? Or is it a sign that I did spend part of my childhood in an alternate universe?
I have no idea. I don't know where I learned the platypus' scientific name!
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Well, I'd still like to hear it. If you ever make a recording, I'd be grateful if you pointed me in the direction of it.
I don't know where I learned the platypus' scientific name!
Interesting. Maybe you did learn it from Mr. Rodgers, also--it sounds as if the episode in question wasn't new when I saw it, so it likely would have aired in your childhood as well.
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I'm rather relieved to know that the Platypus Family weren't simply something my subconscious invented. I didn't think I remembered enough dirigibles or steam cars from my young childhood to have actually lived in an alternate universe.
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...the rest, of course, writes itself.
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If you'd like to write it!
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The first stanza is particularly charming when read aloud in the voice of Eric Cartman from South Park ...
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I hope you won't stop talking to me when I tell you that I've seen exactly one episode of South Park. (It was the one with Mel Gibson . . .)
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I hope you won't stop talking to me when I tell you that I've seen exactly one episode of South Park.
Not at all.
I'm only familiar with it because my career as a high-school teacher coincided with the show's first decade. I recommend the Paris Hilton episode ("Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset").
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Please find a way to share a tune for this so that we really can sing it.
Platypodes forever!
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Semper plat!
(I'll sing it for you at Arisia.)
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(work, finances, and reclusive tendencies will be keeping me from Arisia)
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I expect it would be a very big hit in the filk room as well. (says she who is running some part of open filk on Saturday and Sunday nights).
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So noted!
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Ornithorhynchus anatinus paddled very secure in its Latinness.
FIXED THAT FOR YOU.
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Clerihew! You win.
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Thank you!
(That is a great icon.)
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---L.
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I have made my mark!
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I'll demonstrate the next time I see you. It is true that all George Formby, Jr.'s repertoire needed was a song about a platypus.
I keep thinking of Tim Curry's performance of "The Zucchini Song."
I'd never seen that! Thank you.
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You could give it a shot; it's very short.
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You have my blessing!
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That rocks.
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I'm on her friendlist, so I like to think she's seen it . . .
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Please feel free to write one! I endorse this idea!