... completely unintentionally, I seem to have stumbled across a theme of sorts...
(Poem #208) The Great Panjandrum So she went into the garden
to cut a cabbage-leaf
to make an apple-pie;
and at the same time
a great she-bear, coming down the street,
pops its head into the shop.
What! no soap?
So he died,
and she very imprudently married the Barber:
and there were present
the Picninnies,
and the Joblillies,
and the Garyulies,
and the great Panjandrum himself,
with the little round button at top;
and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can,
till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots
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(Composed by Foote in 1755 to test the memory of the actor Charles Macklin, who
had claimed he could read any paragraph once through and then recite it
verbatim. It is not recorded whether or not Macklin was, in fact, able to
memorise the passage at first reading, but he apparently took great pleasure in
reciting both the anecdote and the passage in later life).
Yes, the theme for this week is (as you may have guessed) poems which have
given words to the English language. This one's one of my favourites: like an
Escher etching or a Lear limerick [1], each little part _seems_ to make perfect
sense, while the whole is nonsensical, even surreal.
thomas.
[1] alliteration always amuses...
[while on the theme]
Main Entry: panjandrum
Pronunciation: pan-'jan-dr&m
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -drums also panjandra /-dr&/
Etymology: Great Panjandrum, burlesque title of an imaginary personage in some
nonsense lines by Samuel Foote
Date: 1755
: a powerful personage or pretentious official
-- from MWCD10, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition,
online at http://www.m-w.com
I've heard the phrase 'Grand Panjandrum' as well (especially in the dictionary
sense of the word); perhaps the resonance of the vowel sounds has something to
do with the popularity of this variant.
[endnote]
... this particular poem is the sample text used in a standard Java tutorial on
using file streams... as a result, a web search on 'Great Panjandrum' returned
several zillion sites... :-)
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