My husband is excellent at memorizing poetry, and I've never understood why some people are and others (me!) aren't. Language Log recently posted about that. My husband says it's easy, and just a matter of meter. I cannot believe how he can pull up poem after poem, lengthy ones, for whatever the reason. He especially is good, though, at limericks or at Ogden Nash poems. He also is great at finding poems for almost any subject. Just today Tsuwm posted about "sheveled." Sure enough, when I looked for the word on Wordcraft, my husband had posted this poem:
I know a little man both ept and ert.
An intro-? extro-? No, he's just a vert.
Sheveled and couth and kempt, pecunious, ane,
His image trudes upon the ceptive brain.
When life turns sipid and the mind is traught,
The spirit soars as I would sist it ought.
Chalantly then, like any gainly goof,
My digent self is sertive, choate, loof.
Gloss, by David McCord
The Oxford Book of American Light Verse
When I reminded him that he had posted that poem in 2004, he then recited another that he knows using the word "sheveled." He truly amazes me. I know no one else who is as good at remembering and reciting poetry as he is.
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2 comments:
In both this post and the next one, you typed "Language Log" when you meant "Language Hat".
(Feel free to delete this comment when you've fixed these errors, as I have no desire to be a perpetual reminder of your mistakes.)
Ken has an amazing gift! I can't seem to remember poems . . . but I can remember song lyrics pretty well (though still not as good as Ken and poetry).
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