Wordplay/Literary techniques

[stellar renegade]

Anyone else out there like senseless wordplay and various literary techniques? I like the way words sound together, I like singing fast songs with alliteration and multiple rhymes in good timing, especially when it's a challenge (it's probably best to actually hear these songs to get it, if it doesn't interest you skip to the next post):

"From ape to man to god by rape we plant the pod to propagate the fraud!
From ape to man to god by rape we plant the pod to liquidate the body!"

"Why do I abandon my endeavor to sever
to pick up the needle and sew it back together?"

"You go to the closet to make a deposit, but you find a blank wall so you make a withdrawal."

"How very breathable the air is here, my head is clear, I have no fear! Sensuous is the status of my sensory apparatus. My research has been going quite well and I've been getting to know myself, while chasing the planetary standard, embracing this land in all her grandeur with open arms and all five senses and to her charms I feel defenseless. And I have dreams where it seems that I have the fly's head and the fly has my head!"

"Warmth from the blast of the laser cannon
Keeps me goin'
When it won't quit snowin'
Man the console
Console the man
Man the console
Console the man
Man the console
Console the man!"

~Blaster the Rocketman

"The 1, 2 beat it drives, it rocks the radio
It's the same old line, different scenario!
To make a living doing something you dream
Like giving tattoos in your bedroom, now my head starts to scream!
You know I can't spend today or the rest of my life
Pushin' buttons, singin' blues and drivin' home at night
Whatcha got on our show, why doncha get up and go?
And don't cease to drive until I let you know..."

~The Dingees

"I saw you burning in a starlit night
Just like a pantheon of comets in flight
Time of place or face, no matter
Now listen to an idiot chatter

Truth be told you're at least half gold
I love ya like a dog loves to run and ramble
Make the brook babble and let the bell ring
Don't let the action of factual things
fracture your casual swing

You are the sun and that's LAW!
I got a mouth like a donkey chewing on straw
Calling all stones, calling all streams, one piece many parts undivided in a dream"

~Common Rider

 

[stellar renegade]

Now for mondegreens.

From wikipedia:

The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term mondegreen in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," which was published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954.[3] In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray." She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray,
And Lady Mondegreen.​

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". As Wright explained the need for a new term, "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original".

More mondegreens (also from wiki):

Surely Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life ("Surely goodness and mercy…" from Psalm 23)

"Gladly, the cross-eyed bear from the hymn "Gladly The Cross I'd Bear"

There's a bathroom on the right (the line at the end of each verse of "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival: "There's a bad moon on the rise")

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy (from a lyric in the song "Purple Haze", by Jimi Hendrix: "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky").

One of my faves was from a story I heard in school as a kid, where a girl misheard "O! say can you see" to say Jose, can you see?

Another story we heard was about two kittens who always scampered into the kitchen when they heard the word "Stew!" shouted by the mother. When the kids had a fight, they just went back and forth with, "Is not!" "Is too!" which eventually devolved into "S'not!" "S'too!" which translated into "Snot Stew" for the kittens, who immediately scampered into the kitchen to find their food.

Here's a song originally created as a mondegreen:

Mairzy doats
and dozy doats
and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too,
wouldn't you?

 

[stellar renegade]

Some hilarious mondegreens from famous rock jams:

"and there's a wino down the road - I should have stolen Oreos!" - "and as we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our souls" - Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin

"I can see those spider veins" - "I can see those fighter planes" - Bullet the Blue Sky by U2

"secret Asian man" - "secret agent man" - Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers

"no dogs orgasm in the classroom" - "no dark sarcasm in the classroom" - Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd

"changes come around real soon; naked swimming in bed" - "changes come around real soon, make us women and men" - Jack and Diane by John Mellencamp

"Makin' carrot biscuits" - "Takin' care of business" - Taking Care Of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive

"wrapped up like a douche, you know the rumor in the night" - "revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" - Blinded By The Light by Mannfred Mann's Earth Band

haha, that last one I always totally heard the word "douche" in, there. Could never figure out what the guy was actually singing.

 

[stellar renegade]

Spoonerisms.

The wikipedia examples are probably a good enough introduction:

• "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet." (occupying my pew...show me to another seat)
• "You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain." (missed...history, wasted...term, down train)

• One example is "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy" (variously attributed to W. C. Fields, Tom Waits, and most commonly Dorothy Parker), which not only shifts the beginning sounds of the word lobotomy, but the entire phrase "frontal lobotomy". The preceding phrase was further developed by Dean Martin, who said, "I would rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy."
  
• In a situation where profanity is unsuitable, a spoonerism is sometimes used to tone down the intensity of the expression or just to bend the rules. "Bass ackwards" (for ass backwards), "nucking futs" (for fucking nuts), and "shake a tit" (itself a risqué phrase, for take a shit) are all common examples of these kinds of spoonerisms.

I used to always do it backwards, though, and say, Piss a titty! instead of 'Tis a pity!

 

[stellar renegade]

Tongue twisters.

I've always been pretty good at these.

A kid in fifth grade just spurted out with "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" to which I immediately shot back, "A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood!"

He was just like, "Why do you have to be so smart?" haha.

I know people have to know more of these.

Betty Botter had some butter,
"But," she said, "this butter's bitter.
If I bake this bitter butter,
it would make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter--
that would make my batter better."

So she bought a bit of butter,
better than her bitter butter,
and she baked it in her batter,
and the batter was not bitter.
So 'twas better Betty Botter
bought a bit of better butter.


I cannot bear to see a bear
Bear down upon a hare.
When bare of hair he strips the hare,
Right there I cry, "Forbear!"


I need not your needles, they're needless to me;
For kneading of noodles, 'twere needless, you see;
But did my neat knickers but need to be kneed,
I then should have need of your needles indeed.

 

[stellar renegade]

This is from the Wikipedia entry on holorimes:

In French poetry, rime richissime ("very rich rhyme") is a rhyme of more than three phonemes. Holorime is an extreme example of rime richissime.

Gall, amant de la Reine, alla (tour magnanime)
Gallamment de l'Arène à la Tour Magne, à Nîmes.

Gallus, the Queen's lover, went (a magnanimous gesture)
Gallantly from the Arena to the Great Tower, at Nîmes.

That's utterly genius. Those two lines sound exactly the same in French, yet mean something completely different, and they still go together as a coherent story.

Whoever wrote that is my hero.

 

[Fluffywolf]

A man, a plan, a canal. Panama.

 

[Phantonym]

Great thread, stellar!

A man, a plan, a canal. Panama.

Ahh, yes. Palindromes.

Here are some of my favourites:

Live evil.
Dogma: I am God.
Murder for a jar of red rum.
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Dammit, I'm mad!
Drab as a fool, aloof as a bard.
Lepers repel.
Lonely Tylenol.
Never odd or even.
So many dynamos!
Reviled did I live, said I, as evil I did deliver.

 

[ergophobe]

Fake Palindromes
Andrew Bird

my dewy-eyed disney bride, what has tried
swapping your blood with formaldehyde?
monsters?
whiskey-plied voices cried fratricide!
jesus don't you know that you could've died
(you should've died)
with the monsters that talk, monsters that walk the earth

and she's got red lipstick and a bright pair of shoes
and she's got knee high socks, what to cover a bruise
she's got an old death kit she's been meaning to use
she's got blood in her eyes, in her eyes for you
she's got blood in her eyes for you

certain fads, stripes and plaids, singles ads
they run you hot and cold like a rheostat, i mean a thermostat
so you bite on a towel
hope it won't hurt too bad

my dewy-eyed disney bride, what has tried
swapping your blood with formaldehyde?
what monsters that talk, monsters that walk the earth

and she says i like long walks and sci-fi movies
if you're six foot tall and east coast bred
some lonely night we can get together
and i'm gonna tie your wrists with leather
and drill a tiny hole into your head

YouTube - Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes originial song!!

 

[Phantonym]

Here are some acronyms and music:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0VnI1dI7zw"]DFTBA[/YOUTUBE]

"DFTBA"
Written and Performed By
Michael Aranda and Hank Green


Don't forget that brains attract
Darling fetch the battle axe
Decepticons fear this brilliant autobot
Do fish take baths a lot?
Dogs frequently take back apologies
Dreadful feudal treachery breeds atrocities
Darkened forests take bravery away
DFTB DFTB DFTBA

Doctor Freud's Topic Became Afflicting
Damn Facebook, too bloody addicting
I came Down for the baby's arrival
But the Dead father's thoughts became archival
Drunk fish try breathing air
Debutante's fame tarnished by affairs
Delano fears to be afraid
DFTB DFTB DFTBA

I don't know what you mean when you say
Please explain
What is DFTBA?

I don't know what you mean when you say
Please explain
What is DFTBA?

DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA

It's so Damn fine to be alive
Until your dorky farting turdface brother arrives
Difficult financial times bring apocalypse
Danes fear the burning acropolis
Donate for the blood association
Don't for the beaux's admiration
Delilah's fruitcake triggers belly-ache
DFTB DFTB DFTBA

Dead frogs teach bored anatomists
Delightful fans that blithely assist
Duel for the best acronym
Dark force to barely apprehend
Dastardly farmers took Bessie away
But she was Destined for the burger anyway
Distro falling through bleak Autumn
Don't forget to be awesome

I don't know what you mean when you say
Please explain
What is DFTBA?

I don't know what you mean when you say
Please explain
What is DFTBA?

DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA

"Oh, and Hank...
Like it says on my friend Katie's arm...
don't forget to be awesome."

I don't know what you mean when you say
Please explain
What is DFTBA?

I don't know what you mean when you say
Please explain
What is DFTBA?

DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA
DFTB DFTB DFTBA

Dandelions fly through blue air
Dandelions fly through blue air