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Saturday, April 20, 2019

Colloquialisms Gone Awry: a New Poetic Form (and an Aside)

This historical archetype, composed by an anonymous six-year-old at some point during the 50s, has been referred to in certain quarters as a "knock-sequitur." It may also in time become recognized as one pre-Oulipian example of anticipatory plagiarism.

Knock, knock! Who's there?
Chair. Chair who?
Chair table.

(To meander from the subject at hand for a brief moment: one is left wondering what young Anon, had he or she been old enough or savvy enough to grasp how knock-knock jokes work, might have originally had in mind.

Chair-...dar Cheese? 
Chair-...choslovakia? 
Chair-...ries Jubilee? 
Chair-...istiction? 
Chair-...assic Park? 
Chair-...on Osbourne?
Chair-...man Mao?
Chair-...(and Sonny)? 
Chair-...okee? 
Chair-...ismatic?
Chair-...ibdis (and Scylla)? 
Chair-...red Kushner?
Chair-...nobyl? 
Chair-...ry Lee Lewis? 
Chair-...ity stripe? 
Chair-...'n' chair alike? 
Chair-...ubim and Seraphim? 
Chair-...iff of Nottingham? 
Chair-...che la femme? 
Chair-...ley's Aunt?

But I digress.)

Recent examples:

Workin' hard? Or barely workin'?

Hey! This isn't rocket surgery.

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