I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living

[sovay]

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.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Io! Evoe!

Nine

[samhenderson.livejournal.com]

I wrote a song about a platypus once, of which I can only recall the chorus:

"Fair dinkum" cried he, and charged to the sea
what glory must being a platypus be

Yours is much better!

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

By Gad, madam, I believe you've written a patter song. Flanders and Swann are applauding from their respective graves. I am delighted, myself.

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

[aliseadae]

Is there a tune? Is this a patter song? It seems like it should be.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful. Hurrah for platypodes, and songs about them! Speaking of which, I'd love to hear this sung, if you've a tune for it.

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?

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

I was certain it would begin "We are the very model of a modern plural platypus..."

...the rest, of course, writes itself.

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

The first stanza is particularly charming when read aloud in the voice of Eric Cartman from South Park ...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

***APPLAUSE****

Please find a way to share a tune for this so that we really can sing it.

Platypodes forever!

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

It doesn't go with the patter song, and mind I have had four hours of sleep and an argument with my neti pot, but:

Ornithorhynchus anatinus paddled very secure in its Latinness.

FIXED THAT FOR YOU.

[larryhammer]

Oh most excellent. Brava!

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

Perfect!! I'll never remember it all but I shall have to insert "platypodes" into a conversation as soon as humanly possible.

[mrbelm.livejournal.com]

You need to find a tune that fits the words, I'd like to work it out on ukulele. I keep thinking of Tim Curry's performance of "The Zucchini Song (http://www.veoh.com/watch/v5822449wfP4atMK)."

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

This is awesome. I totally should compose a tune to it. Pity that I haven't composed a good tune in over eight years.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm tempted to dust down my omnichord and strum some accompaniment.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Geekier icon? Or perhaps this?

[selidor]

I have a sneaky desire for a third verse about puggles. (They get shown on the news every so often; Cutest Animal Ever, even beating baby sloths).