At the suggestion of another user, here is a thread for double dactyls.


I found a nice, concise list of the rules for double dactyls at thie web page:

Here's a detailed list of rules for constructing a double dactyl:
(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.

-------------------------
Here's my first-ever attempt (now edited upon further [and by further I mean initial] reading of the rules myself):

Antique Roadshow
Cheerio dearie-o
Leslie and Leigh Keno
Praising the furniture
Said as they grinned:

“It’s neither Empire nor
Neoclassical but
Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired!
See how it’s pinned?”


Generic Double Dactyl
Oracle boracle
Person Historical
Tales allegorical
If they will fit

Polysyllabical
Iconoclastical
Thusly redacted rhe-
-torical wit

And the two single word lines in the second make up for the lack of any in the first?

Wouldn't want necomers to the art getting the wrong idea now.

Skittable knitable
Faldage-the-Critical
Authoritatively
Laid down the rule

Alex, admittedly
Abecedarian,
Unhesitatingly
Went back to school

Alex, maybe you should find the double-dactyl rulz, and post a link to them in your signature.

from the LINK (click here where the letters are a different color, yes the left button on the mouse) already posted in the first entry in this thread...

A dactyl, as you may know, is a poetic foot of the form >-- (ON-off-off). For example, interstate, realize, microphone, cereal, limerick, etc. etc. A double dactyl, naturally enough, is two dactyls in a row.

A double dactyl is also a poem, a form invented by Anthony Hecht and Paul Pascal. Quite like a limerick, it has a rigid (if peculiar) structure. Two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line. The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is somebody's name -- strictly speaking, a proper noun. Note that this name must itself be double-dactylic. E.g. Gloria Vanderbilt, Jesus of Nazareth, Gilbert and Sullivan, Archangel Gabriel. In the second stanza, one entire line must be a double-dactylic word. E.g. biopsychology

-------------------------------------------------------

Albatross Balbatross
Baron von Richthofen
Chased a Canadian
Down to the deck

There at such altitudes
Acrodendrophilous
Double-A gunners soon
Blew him to heck

looking intensely for
the <bow emoticon>,
Alex, er, Will-i-ams
d'serves one, indeed.

seemingly, effortless-
ly, he produces, a
double-dactylian
menagerie!

Higgledy-Piggledy
Alex the Hogmeister
Deftly deals dactlys
Like so many cards,

Hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds
Serendiptiously
Fly from his fingers --
He's one of our bards.

Higglepod snogglepod
Susan B Anthony
Honored on dollar coins
By U.S. mint

Fighting for suffrage so
Ever-unflaggingly
(Dollars, like voting rights,
Largely unspent)

------------------

Higgity hoggity
Ludwig van Beethoven
Lost all his hearing from
years of abuse

From his mean father so
uberopprobrious
Yet brilliant Ludwig van
Retained his muse

--from Alex who likes a bit of the ultraviolence

ultraviolence Purple proses?

I've created a monster!!

I'm glad to give others a smile but I do eagerly anticipate others' contributions. Perhaps I should sit on my hands for awhile and focus on quality more than quantity. In the meantime take a gander at the "Romeo and Juliet" double dactyl that can be found HERE (scroll down a bit). Truly, a work of mad genius it is.

Funnybones honeybones,
Doctor A Williams has
Scrip for a new kind of
Comical rhyme.

Sharp wits he operates:
Cutting and pasting he
Iatrogenically
Slays us each time!

I guess I confus-ed, that's
right, it's me, etaoin;
the order in which the
name ought to have been.

try as I might, I con-
-tinually evade rules
prevaricatingly
playing the fool.

Coarse-ary sorcery
Bath Wife of Chaucer, G.
Told of a rapist sent
Out on a quest:

Married to mutable
Octogenarian,
Faced with dilemma, said
“Dear you know best.”

roolzeeo smoolzeeo
e t a o i n
thought he'd deliberately
mislead the troops

Offering up a faux
participational
entry he steers newbies
down the wrong chutes.

The Physician’s Tale

woefully soulfully
comely Verginia
Apius creyves her for
lecherus sport

conspiratorial
perjurer Claudius
habeus corpus
obteyns from the court

fader Verginius
axiomatically
practyces filicide
honour to save

prosecutorial
consequence: Claudius,
banished; for Apius,
unhallowed grave

--by Alex, who writes in the style of the old masters and shamelessly rips off John Held, Jr's epitaphs

Heffalump huffalump
Danaus plexippus,
volitant royalty
of wind and earth,

aposematically
warning all predators:
Alkaloid flavor here,
give me wide berth.

--by Alex, whose doggerel may leave a bad taste in your mouth

Zippity Lippity
Catherine DeMedicis,
Looking to end the
religious divides,

Issued her Edict so
Idealistically;
Nevertheless many
Lost their poor hides.

holey frijole a-
nother dactylian
starting up something that
had faded 'way

looking to find us un-
characteristic'lly
sleep-walking behind the
rhythmic parade.

Sneakingly, creepingly,
some think annoyingly,
twosleepy comes in to
fix up the mess

made of a Spanish word,
guess that you never heard;
"frijole" does not ex-
ist; it's "frijol" no less!

Spanglishly, manglishly
statesians mess up in
trying to use words that
aren't English norm,

stumblingly, humblingly,
Even the best can learn
"-es" removes from the
plural noun form.

Wow! Did I write that?!? That was fun! Don't know if I followed all the rules, but I think so... This is a problem usually with "tamales", from which people want to make "tamale", but it doesn't exist; it's "tamal" in the singular. Since so many Spanish words end in vowels, those are easy; just remove the "s". Hope you enjoyed my mini-lesson! :0)

'njoying the lesson I
stand by my usage I
know that I've heard it a
time on TV

blame not me, uh-uh my
vocabularic pe-
culiar niceties
trump prescript'vies!

That's a mayor poem and lesson and Etaoin is making hashj from it. And you could have expected this sooner or later:

Dactylus! Dactylus!
Olleke bolleke
Tweemaal vier regels
Die rijmen aan 't slot

Kreet, thema, één woord met
Zeslettergrepigheid
Moeilijk te maken
Maar wat een genot! (borrowed)
----------
AKA: Olleke Bolleke
rebuso olleke
Olleke Bolleke............Knol! (nursery rhyme)

Sniggley piggly
Ding dong a diggley
Wop bop a loo bop a-biddle bam bo

Widdley waddley
Sham-a-lama ding daddley
Hi de hi de hi de hi de hi de hi de hi de ho!

heh

I remember a similar bit of poetry on an episode of Night Court.

Your elegant nursery rhyme proves to me once more that the Dutch language is fine for many things, but it does not sing.
The difference is obvious.

I find the most difficult part of the Double Dactyl is finding the person's name in that meter. Here's one for today. You can tell I don't have enough work to do!!

Doodlewon Toodlewon
Jennifer Anniston:
Actress who played in a
Number of hits;

She tried to reconcile
Enthusiastically;
Later declared, “Brad, you’re
Really the PITTS.”

[helpless laughter e]

Something made me think of Catherine DeMedicis a couple weeks ago. I don't even remember now what it was. But I thought: "Aha! A double dactyl could arise from this!" And I began to cogitate.

Actually, all I truly remembered about her from my school daze was that she was a ruthless woman and a poisoner. As you can see, after doing a little research, I decided to praise her for her good, yet futile, attempt to bring Catholics and Hugenots together.

So you see, wordplay is not only fun but educational. I learned things about her I had not known!

Supiter Dupiter
Anakin Skywalker:
Jedi apprentice,
The Force was his guide;

He fought fantastically,
Telekinetically,
Bravely for Good 'til
Consumed by his pride.

Coffeebean Jediïng
down to Old Catherine
taking the mind machine
Gracefully pardonning

Medici caught between
unfaith and onfaith of
Philip and Taciturn
endlessly bickering......

Hennety Pennety
Jacqueline Kennedy,
Wife of the ill-fated
President, Jack:

She stood majestically,
Characteristically
Strong through her heartbreak
And never looked back.

Heineken Beineken
Old Samuel Adams was
Checking his private stock,
Looking for Bud.

Bottles were bad for his
Crystallophobia.
He cracked a can open--
Tasted like mud.

Boldly Mongolian
Hordeing old Genghis Khan
Swept through the Steppes “like
A Wolf on the Fold”

Mightily, Blightily
Quite genocidally
Reliev’d all the Slavs of
Their silver and gold

Meninov Leninov
Vladimir Ulanov
Said in Geneva in
Jan. ’17,

“I fear revolution
Will not be solution
In my lifetime: when, it
remains to be seen”

The Rev Ian Paisley, leader and founder of both the Independent Presbyterian Church and the Democratic Unionist Party in N. Ireland, has just retired from the Church at the age of (I think) 78. He retired from the political party aout 18 months ago. He was noted for his very loud voice and remarkably powerful sermons in his south Belfast chapel. This is to him ...


Lazily Aisily
The Reverend Paisley
Steps from his pulpit and
Makes his way out

Not any more will he
Declamatorily
Raise East Belfast with his
Shout from the South

Limerick Gimmerick
Jason of Pendleton
Tried double-dactyls while
Fearing the worst.

Uh-oh-spaghetti-o!
They're all bass-ackwards cuz
He's used to anapest
(Dactyls reversed).

Kerotsky Perlotsky
L.Bronstein (or Trotsky)
Fell out with Lenin
Before 1910,

Came back to the Bolshie fold
Talented manifold
And led the Red Guards to
Full victory.

(2nd stanza, 1st ine is unorthodox - but so was Trotsky!)

Heidelburg Hoodelburg
Albert Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha paid court to the
Young British Queen,

Married her, carried her
Then didn’t tarry here
After which she was rare-
Ly to be seen

Yowsee- I have missed reading this thread. Clap, clap,clap - obi and rhuby (welcome back rhuby - you have brought back a bit o' 2001)

mind-body, body-mind
Renee Descartes, it's said,
thought that the dactyllic
form should be banned:

"We should not write things so
polysyllabically,
Just use two beats, I think,
therefore iamb."

very good: welcome
Love your name. The trickster is a fave of mine as well.

That's a good one.

Back in his era, the
Seventeenth century,
Smooth alexandrines were
Often the way;

Playwrights were keen on these
Dodecasyllables,
As in the tragedies
Penned by Corneille.

Stippety steppity
My name is Dave, I'm ad-
dicted to dactyl hex-
ameter verse,

My Higher Power in
dodecaincrement
meetings must help me be-
fore it gets worse.

Roboty, noboty,
Doc Isaac Asimov
Taught biochemistry,
Then wrote sci-fi:

"'Para-dichloro-
amino-benzaldehyde ! '
Such a nice lilt to it ! "
Twinkle in eye.

Dickety Dockety
wofahulicodoc
wrote a small ditty on
Doc Asimov,

using appropriate
organochemical
endless compoundedness;
fits like a glove.



Asimov's own suggestion… was to say "Has Him Of" and leave out the H's.
http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html#non-literary1

Well bless your heart, I'm touched! i do believe that's the first time I've been the object of a Double-Dactyl. (Or any other kind of poem, for that matter.)

From November 19, 2008, above! (modified slightly)

Or, to paraphrase minimally,

"All I remembered of
Catherine de Medici:
Ruthless, the woman,
Of poisonous tone...

So you see, wordplay is
Fun, educational;
Learned things about her
That I had not known!"

A small salute perhaps, but a salute nonetheless. I appreciate your contributions to this forum.

Thanks to Pythagoras,
Right-angled triangles
Can be computed with
Relative ease.

Only employ his neat
Trigonometrical
Rule if one angle is
Ninety degrees.

Merrily-scarily
Dear A C Bowden
Constructs all these poems
So effortlessly,

Giving the feeling they're
Extemporaneous -
How that's accomplished's
Enigma to me.

Today's Word-a-Day is "antimetabole" - does that suggest anything to anyone? Like invent one in double-dactyl format?

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Scribbled: "The Japs will be
Fighting to die if they're
Dying to fight".

Then he deleted this
Antimetabole,
Thinking such rhetoric
Sounded too trite.

By George, he's got it!

Higgledy, piggledy,
Prof. Peter Higgs
proposes a boson
with much gravitas.

Called the God Particle,
Quantumechanically
It is the reason
We must go to Mass.

Nice !

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.

Really delightful comment on that historical event. Bravo.

"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.

"Turbulent" is the most common version, according to Wikipedia.


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!).

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!

Some of his knights heard these
Antiepiscopal...

Sure!

Wofahulicodoc
(Can it be dactylized?)
Often contributes to
Mensopause III,

Thereby augmenting the
Neologistical
Richness of English, I
Think you'll agree.

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 ?

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.

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.

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!

Bernard Montgomery,
Sent to North Africa,
Rallied his troops with the
Confident boast:

"With our numerical
Superiority,
We can win easily.
Rommel is toast!"

Pontifex Maximus,
Holy Pope Francis was
Chosen divinely as
Bishop of Rome.

He will deliver some
Deontological
Guidance in tracts from his
Vatican home.



Judas Iscariot
Needed some cash, so he
Vilely betrayed the Lord
Jesus, we're told.

Sadly, such greed is an
Anthropological
Trait - we are tempted by
Silver and gold.

Russell and Whitehead, the
Mathematicians,
Worked hard to produce all-
Encompassing feat.

Then came Kurt Gödel, who
Self-referentially
Showed that their treatise must
Be incomplete.

Ludwig van Beethoven,
Writing a violin
Part in a symphony,
Put a low F.

When he was told of its
Unplayability,
He was ashamed and said:
"Sorry, I'm deaf".

And now for a Double Anapest:

Alexander the Great
Led a conquering host
Which could soundly defeat
Any tribe;

His opponents' extreme
Ineffectualness
Was a fact the accounts
All describe.

I gotta work on this some more.

A dactyl is ONE-two-three - a triple rhythm. But maybe an anapest is not just a matter of the stress being on the final beat instead, but (musical analogy) it's two pickup notes and the downbeat, which makes it more a four-count rhythm: three-four-ONE like a galloping horse - pa-da-POM, pa-da-POM etc - with a short unvoiced pause providing an implied "two," . Otherwise you really can't tell one from the other. If you string them together how do you decide whether it's a poly-dactyl or a poly-anapest?

Sung to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman: " We got PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL

de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL..." repeat ad-libitum. Is it ONE.two.three.ONE.two.three or two.three.ONE.two.three.ONE?

Here's what the tune sounds like

(PS Para-etc. is the chemical name for a kind of moth-repellant.)

Yes, I agree, and I have tried to reproduce this rhythm as far as possible by using a long vowel and/or a consonant cluster for the 'downbeats'.


Well, if you begin and end each line with a complete anapestic foot, I would call it a poly-anapest.


Yes, I am familiar with this tune. The distinction is not so clear here, but since the tune begins with two upbeats and ends with a downbeat, it seems more anapestic than dactylic. "We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR/ We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR/ We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR/ We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR". (Some of the later lines begin with only one upbeat, i.e. "We've SEV-en-ty...")

All I've come up with so far is

On a tree by the river
A little tom-tit
Sang Willow, tit-willow,
Tit-willow.

And I said to him, Dicky-bird,
Why do you sit,
Singing Willow, tit-willow,
Tit-willow... usw.

But that one's taken.
I'll keep working.

President Kennedy
Said that America
Would in a few years put
Men on the Moon.

Clearly his motive was
Geopolitical -
Beating the Russians would
Be a great boon.


William the Conqueror,
Claiming his right to the
Kingdom of England, took
Power by force.

Grimly efficient and
Authoritarian,
He laid the law down (in
Latin, of course).

Margaret Thatcher was
Britain's Prime Minister,
Called 'Iron Lady' and
Very well known.

One wag delivered this
Paraprosdokian:
"Iron, indeed, but
Her heart is pure stone".

Victor Emmanuel,
First king of Italy,
Waved to the crowd and
Declared with due weight:

"Had it not been for your
Counterimperial
Fight, we would not have a
Unified state".

Andrew Lloyd Webber has
Mastered the method of
Writing hit musicals
Time after time.

Some critics scorn his tunes'
Accessibility;
Bernstein and Sondheim are
Deemed more sublime.

Johann Sebastian
Bach was a genius,
Famous for fugues and
Cantatas galore.

Sometimes he verges on
Polytonality;
Look on the Web if you
Want to learn more.

Richard the Lionheart
Reigned for ten years without
Spending much time in the
England he ruled.

Politics, rather than
Spirituality,
Drove his crusading, though
Many were fooled.

Here's to El Cid, the
Illustrious warrior,
Known to his troops as the
Campeador.

Later commanders, like
Zumalacárregui,
Couldn't compare with that
Hero of yore.

Today's A Word A Day was QUIXOTRY

Don't overlook him:
Miguel de Cervantes, who
wrote Don Quixote in
1605

The Man of La Mancha fought
Phantasmagorical
Beasties and Windmills he
Made come alive.

(Note: A quick Google search reveals that Don Quixote's "real" name is Alonso Quijano, a 16th-century Spanish hidalgo. Those fit the rhythm, too.)

Ludwig van Beethoven's
B flat sonata was
Published as Opus one-
hundred-and-six.

Some players found the piece
Incomprehensible,
Due to its length and its
Structural tricks.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Wowed the Victorians
Due to his powerful
Rhythm and rhyme.

Though his best verses have
Memorability,
Some of his oeuvre is
Not so sublime.

Nicola Sturgeon, the
Scottish First Minister,
Riled her opponents by
Speaking her mind;

Transgender rights were an
Ideological
Battle too far, so she
Up and resigned.

Vladimir Putin said:
"Those who insist that my
People want freedom are
Totally wrong;

Foreigners constantly
Underappreciate
How much the Russians love
Chiefs who are strong".

One Alex Williams, a
Former participant,
Started this thread in two
Thousand and six;

Many years later, its
Polysyllabical
Challenge endures, if you
Like verbal tricks.

Simon de Montfort called
England's first parliament
During the reign of King
Henry the Third;

Government thenceforth was
Representational
(Though 'democratic' would
Be the wrong word).

Tutankhamun (if you
Stress the last syllable)
Caused a sensation on
Being revealed;

Archaeological
Ace Howard Carter was
Hailed by the press as a
Star in his field.

Torvill and Dean were a
Couple of skaters who
Conquered the world with their
Perfect routine;

Technical prowess and
Theatricality
Made them by far the best
Pair ever seen.