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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Henry Plantagenet,
Angered by Becket, said:
"Would I were rid of that
Turbulent priest!"
Several knights heard his
Antiepiscopal
Words, and the prelate was
Shortly deceased. "Meddlesome" priest was the way I heard it, but it changes nothing. I tend to pronounce "several" with only two syllables, which would make Line 5 a beat short. Unless you wanted to make it Several knights heard his words
Antiepiscopal...but that only shifts the missing to beat line 7. Maybe make it "Thomas the prelate was..." or some variation. Maybe better still would be to avoid the word "several" altogether. as it's susceptible to alternative pronunciations.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Meddlesome" priest was the way I heard it, but it changes nothing. "Turbulent" is the most common version, according to Wikipedia. I tend to pronounce "several" with only two syllables, which would make Line 5 a beat short. The dictionaries generally seem to prefer the three-syllable pronunciation. I think of it as a three-syllable word (even if I don't enunciate the second syllable clearly!).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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For the sake of completeness, and for what it's worth:
"...this turbulent priest" gets 22,300 Googlehits
"...this troublesome priest" gets 19,800 Ghits
"...this meddlesome priest" shows a mere 6700 Ghits
I wonder what the "real" quotation is.
The only way I know of to avoid the syllable-count ambiguity is to use a different word. That being said, accepting the three-syllable "several," the verse sparkles!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The only way I know of to avoid the syllable-count ambiguity is to use a different word.
Antiepiscopal...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sure! 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Wofahulicodoc
(Can it be dactylized?)
Often contributes to
Mensopause III,
Thereby augmenting the
Neologistical
Richness of English, I
Think you'll agree.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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From the original post on this thread:
...a nice, concise list of the rules for double dactyls...
(1) The entire poem is a single sentence.
(2) There are two stanzas of four lines each.
(3) All lines except lines four and eight are two dactylic metrical feet in length.
(4) The first line is usually a rhyming nonsense phrase. For example, "Higgledy piggledy."
(5) The second line often, but not always, introduces the topic of the poem. If you are writing about a person, it helps if the name of the person you are writing about is naturally in the form of a double dactyl. For example, "Hans Christian Andersen."
(6) One line within the second stanza (often the sixth line) is a six-syllable, double-dactylic word, usually an adverb or adjective. For example, "Parthenogenesis."
(7) The fourth and eighth lines are not double dactyls. Instead, these lines consist of one dactyl plus a stressed syllable.
(8) The fourth and eighth lines rhyme with one another. Given the special form of the fourth and eight lines as mentioned in the preceding rule, it follows that the final, rhyming syllable of these lines must be a stressed syllable.
Stanzas two; four lines each;
Start off with nonsense; all
Lines except Four and Eight:
Two-dactyl mix
Sixth line is often one
doubledactylic word
Rhyme Four and Eight, skip their
Counts five and six.
It's imperfect, and incomplete. Can we refine and improve ?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Stanzas two, four lines each.
Start off with nonsense. All
Lines except Four and Eight:
Two-dactyl mix
Sixth line is one word with
Doubledactylity.
Rhyme Four and Eight; skip their
Counts five and six.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Two four-line stanzas, two
Dactyls per line, and lines
Four and Eight (missing two
Final counts) rhyme;
Sixth line's one word which is
Hexasyllabical;
First line's a jingle in
Two-dactyl time.
Personally, I prefer to leave out the nonsense and introduce the topic in the first line, so I can say more.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Aha! Good on yer for thinking outside the box like that. I never noticed the missing gibberish, but in retrospect it's a clear pattern.
When I first encountered the beast (New York Magazine, I think it was, in the late 50s or so) they weren't called double-dactyls yet but rather went by the name "Higgledy -Piggledies." It never occurred to me that that was a negotiabe part of the format.
I think I disagree with the first stipulation, too - nothing reasonable requires that they be one sentence, and not a paragraph or even a conversation.
I'll keep your practice in mind for the future!
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