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Not in the same class as Paul’s and Ian’s, and not written to be sung, but my own heartfelt comment on the contemporary scene, still hot from the keyboard‚Ķ..
GONE A-GOOGLING
If her doorbell isn’t answered and her phone is off the hook,
And you do not see her shopping in the mall;
If the work she should be doing doesn’t even get a look,
And she never goes a-partying at all;If she hasn’t heard the headlines and the soaps have lost their pull,
And her Jake CD’s are never even played;
If she’s looking pretty scruffy, and her dustbin’s overfull,
And the growing pile of bills remains unpaid;If she lives on crisps and chocolate but doesn’t want a drink,
And she keeps forgetting when she took her pills;
If the dirty pots and pans are lying festering in the sink;
And the dust is inches thick upon the sills;If she doesn’t take the milk in, and the garden’s looking rough,
And her junk mail is left lying on the floor;
If her children think they’re orphans and her friends have had enough,
And the cat has gone around to live next door;If her back is stiff and aching and her eyes are getting blurred,
And her bladder is so full it’s causing pain;
Then you do not have to wonder what disaster has occurred:
Judith Taylor’s gone a-googling again!¬© Judith Taylor 2004 :unsure:
[Now revised and improved in the light of comments below.][A point of pedantry : should it be a hyphen, an apostrophe, or a space? I have seen all three on the web, in examples such as “a maying”, “a-roving” and “a’wassailing”. Hours of research there for you, Keith!]
I like it, Judith. Kipling might feel somewhat miffed, though.
Re the construction with “a”, Chambers says that the “a” in these constructions is “a reduced form of the Old English preposition an or on, meaning on, in or at, as in abroad, afire, afloat, asleep, a-begging, a-hunting, and occasionally used separately as a preposition, as in once a year”.
Looks like an example of the progression from separate words to hyphenated word to single word, and the position in that sequence of any one word generally depends on how frequently the construction is used. So asleep was probably once an sleep, then a sleep, then a-sleep and now asleep, while abegging just doesn’t look right (yet). Another example is no one, no-one or noone, all of which are in use at the moment, with no-one probably the most common and noone the least. As with all examples of hyphenated words you need to decide how comfortable you feel with putting one in or leaving one out, since the change can only happen over time as usage shifts, and you can be in the van or drag your feet, as the mood takes you.
I do draw the line though at US constructions such as “anymore” that for me have yet to attain even hyphenated status. However the equally annoying “awhile” (as in ‘Wait awhile’) is a different construction incorporating the indefinite article, being from the Old English ane hwile a while (dative), combined as early as 13th century – one of those old usages that the US has kept and the UK has lost, such as ‘gotten’ and ‘fall’, and that sound new to Brits. While I’m ranting, let me also deplore the US “a couple eggs” and similar, where “a couple” is used in the same way as “a dozen”, whereas UK usage would demand an “of”.
There is no support or justification whatsoever for an apostrophe in the a-roving type of construction.
That’s what I think any way (any-way, anyway). Any one or noone agree?
Keith
KeithD wrote:
I like it, Judith. Kipling might feel somewhat miffed, though.
Oh dear! Have I borrowed from from Kipling without realising it?
I suppose you’re thinking of “If” ? Entirely unconscious – but I always was a parrot. But the sentiment was entirely spontaneous and my own!Judith wrote:
Oh dear! Have I borrowed from Kipling without realising it? I suppose you’re thinking of “If”
A very tenuous conection, Judith, that I made purely to wind you up. I really meant David Gates, of course (look him up on Google :laugh: )
As for not being meant to be sung, it scans almost perfectly and would certainly be singable. But I take your point: it’s a pome, not a snog.
KeithD wrote:
……it scans almost perfectly and would certainly be singable. But I take your point: it’s a pome, not a snog.
I can’t forgive you for that ‘almost’ – it seems I shall have to do more work on it, as I’m very fussy about scansion, even if the poem is lightweight. Normally I would never publish something written overnight, but I needed to get a heap of PC frustration out of my system before it did any internal damage! To me that is, not to the PC. 😡 :angry:
I wouldn’t mind it being sung if someone wanted to write a toon, but it might need a refrain after each verse. 🙂
[color=#0000FF]Excellent, Judith!
I love a good pome – can never make up my mind whether you have to be smarter to compose a snog or a pome(leaving aside the melody, of course).
Only change I would make is in the line about the bills – otherwise,great. I recognised myself in there!
Can we have some more?Sue[/color]
Actually, the words pretty much fit the tune of Billy Kershaw – although an extra line per verse would be needed…
Ian
SueJones wrote:
Only change I would make is in the line about the bills – otherwise,great.
Thanks Sue. What is it about the bills line that doesn’t sound right to you – is it the sentiment, or the way it’s expressed? Perhaps it’s not quite as sharp as some of the others. I was reckoning to do some more work on it anyway, and as we’ve no Brassens translations on the go here at the moment, it would be nice to share some creative input over this. 🙂
My posting crossed with Ian’s, so I’ll answer him here too.
I’ve had a quick listen and you’re right. Would it work if you repeated the line “Judith’s gone a-googling again” at the end of each verse? I had thought of something like that. Also if one could make a song of it, it could be applied to anyone with a change of name, and gender if necessary, according to present company. Although on second thoughts it probably does sound more like a woman than a man. 😛
Judith wrote:
….. it would be nice to share some creative input over this.
So Keith, tell me where it almost doesn’t scan, too…..
Judith wrote:
Judith wrote:
[quote]….. it would be nice to share some creative input over this.So Keith, tell me where it almost doesn’t scan, too…..[/quote]
Sue spotted it – it’s the extra syllable in “without”. Now, in a song that wouldn’t matter at all, and in a pome it matters such a tiny bit that probably only genuinely sad cast-iron pendants like me would notice it – and even I don’t care. But I expect you will stay awake half the night recasting that line umpteen different ways. Best I can do is “And the bills are piling up, unread, unpaid”, but do you really ‘read’ a bill?
(And while you’re at it, you might casually stick a “Then” at the beginning of the penultimate line – put another syllable in the metre, as it were.)
Then you can sing it to the tune of ‘The Green Eye of the Yellow God’, a monologue written in 1911 or 1901 with lyrics by J Milton Hayes with music by Cuthbert Clarke. Ah! The wonders of Google – you should try it, Judith :laugh:
KeithD wrote:
– it’s the extra syllable in “without”. …….. (And while you’re at it, you might casually stick a “Then” at the beginning of the penultimate line – put another syllable in the metre, as it were.)
Well, no, actually I think the extra syllable is in ‘being’. I must have been allowing myself the poetic licence of saying it as one syllable. I shall continue to do so for the time being, as I can’t readily find a way of fixing it to my liking.
But you are right about the extra syllable in the penultimate line and I shall alter that immediately. And strictly speaking I suppose there should be another syllable in the last line too. It would be possible to use ‘Mrs Taylor’ instead of ‘Judith’ – but not among friends. Or I could have written ‘our Judith’ – but that seems a bit presumptious about myself.
Then you can sing it to the tune of ‘The Green Eye of the Yellow God’
So where can I hear this tune then?
Ah! The wonders of Google – you should try it, Judith
Up yours, mate! 😉
SueJones wrote:
[color=#0000FF]
I love a good pome …….. Can we have some more? [/color]It would be easy to say ‘yes’ Sue, but that would be a bit onesided. Maybe we ought to have a poets’ corner here. Have you got anything to offer?
By the way, I don’t know how long you’ve been with us, but did you catch the sequence of limericks on Yahoo about the launch of the CD. It’s posted as a file called ‘Celebration Limericks’. You’ll probably know most of the characters.
PS : I say! I’ve got a gold medal for 50 postings – fame at last!
[color=#0000FF]More than OK by me – and exactly what I would have suggested!
I’ve got to have another read to see what Keith meant.
Back soon.Sue[/color] :unsure:
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