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THE WORDLAB WORDLETTER                 Episode 3
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Monday, July 26, 1999     http://www.wordlab.com


We have been busy here lately, to say the least.
Working like industrious little Bugs on our new
daily venture. Stay tuned.
- Snark
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Last week WordLab crossed the 5,000-entry rubicon,
and Quark and I have our sights trained squarely
on the Big Ten K. This is no rubiCON-job, though
whether it pays the mortgage on my rubicondo is
another matter.

And speaking of bad, evil, sick, viscous,
nauseating and downright disgusting puns....
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We received an email question recently that
succinctly drills to the heart of a great
cultural problem, so let's quote it here:

    "Hi-
        I'm just trying to get the scoop on why
    people always say "no pun intended?"
        I often stress "pun intended!"
        Is this considered to be in poor taste?
    Thanx, Dave"

I don't have to tell any of you that we are in the
same boat as Mr. Dave here, in which puns are
always intended, and this cultural predisposition
against puns is both absurd and hypocritical,
since nearly every headline in newspapers and
magazines is a dreaded pun.

Most interesting to me is the pun that sneaks up
and mugs me in some unsuspecting corner of my
cranium and tickles my amygdala sick. And as the
following story illustrates, a pun assault can
turn deadly for the wrong person at the wrong time.
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THOMSON'S GHAZAL

One of my specialties, a perennial favorite on my
extensive resume of skills for Jobs No One Will
Ever Offer Me So I Have To Create Them Myself,
are puns so convoluted they require explanation.
While the recipient of this magic winces and
writhes in pain, I monotonously explain. And
they are usually no happier once they get it;
in fact, groans can be discerned. But therein
lies the perverse fun, and here comes another
one...

A fan of WordLab named Thompson contacted us
a while back in regard to titling her corporate
Presidential Message with a good title that
preferably integrated her name somehow. My first
thought: Thomson's Gazelle, as in "Gazella
thomsoni, the common gazelle of theEast African
plains." Though fleet of foot, the gazelle
lacked the oomph I need for what I was sure
had become a hypothetical project, having by
now probably lost Ms. Thompson, but having at
least gained a new pun. And thus, "Thomson's
Ghazal" was born. A Ghazal, for those of you
who haven't yet had the pleasure of listening
to Najma or Jagit Signh, is a traditional Indian
song form based on Urdu poetry dating back to
seventh century Persia. Here's a more thorough
definition, courtesy Eric Folsom
[ http://www.ahapoetry.com/ghazal.htm ]:

"The ghazal, many will tell you, is an ancient
Persian form of verse. The OED notes that it is
generally erotic in nature, limited in the
number of stanzas, and uses a recurring rhyme.
The western impression, dating back to the last
century and earlier, is that ghazals celebrate
love and wine, but it is interesting to discover
that ghazals can be found today in modern pop
music. The Indo-British singer known as Najma
for instance, uses a number of ghazals (in Hindi
if my memory is correct)as the lyrics of her
songs. They are quite haunting, long soft
syllables with tabla and saxophone solos, and
gist of the words amounts to no more than the
usual hyperbole of love song lyrics. No
Bacchanalia."

Then comes a real shocker, as Folsom writes
in the next paragraph:

"In the U.S. of course, people like Bly and
Rich have been the catalysts for the emergence
of the new English language form of the ghazal.
In Canada, however, the catalyst was a
transplanted Englishman named John Thompson.
He lived at Wood Point, New Brunswick, not far
from what may arguably be the most famous
landscape in Canadian verse, the Tantramar
Marshes near Fundy Bay. Thompson's writing
was utterly unlike the Canadian classics by
Bliss Carman and others. He wrote instead a
kind of agonized nature and man poetry, a type
of free verse akin to Galway Kinnell and Ted
Hughes, and in the last years before his
suicide he turned to the ghazal. "

John Thompson. Thompson's Ghazal. No wonder he
committed suicide. His great adopted art form is
reduced to a cheap pun when paired with his name.
This realization must have hit him like a gazelle
in full gallop across the veldt, and simply
devastated him.

And that's how a WordLab Pun is born, straight
from the belly of a speeding gazelle crooning
epic love poems beneath a Canadian moon.
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IT ALWAYS LOOKS GRAVE AT ONE

Finally, we close this Episode of the WordLetter
with the best warning of all about puns, from
"The Greatest Book Ever Ridden," Lewis Carroll's
"The Hunting of the Snark-An Agony In Eight Fits."
Take note of "unmistakable mark" number three, below:

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
Which is meager and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavor of Will-o-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes --
A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
And those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums -- " The Bellman broke off in alarm,
For the Baker had fainted away.

- From "Fit the Second" of "The Snark"
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ONLINE RESOURCES:
Najma Akhtar - http://www.ark21.com/mondomelodia/najma/najma_bio.htm
Jagit Signh - http://www.mindspring.com/~niraj/jagjit.htm
Lewis Carroll, "The Hunting of the Snark" -
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgibin/browse-mixed?id=CarSnar&tag=public&images=i
mages/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed
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Check out the brand new feature category just
added to WordLab: Movies - Verb/Name. Here is
the discription from the page header:

"Specifically Verb/Proper Name, a sub-species
of contemporary movietitling so egregious,
obsequious, ubiquitous and viral that WordLab
could no longer resist pointing a nagging
wagging digit in its direction. You know the
type, which may or may not have begun with
'Eating Raoul' in 1982 and 1983's 'Educating
Rita,' but which has definitely reached
critical mass recently with such gems as
'Raising Arizona,' 'Chasing Amy,''Deconstruct-
ing Harry,' and 'Feeling Minnesota.' Well,
hang on, for soon you may be feeling your
Minnesota as well."
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