planet gareth : poems : tumblr-general

On 7th June 2024, a friend pointed me at this Tumblr post.

I sent him a reply about ten minutes later. Since I'm not on Tumblr, only a few friends saw the reply, which is a shame as I was rather pleased with it. So I shall put it here.

First, I'll paste in the original post:


I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone
and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about
everything, whatever topic, big or small.

And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.

The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and
adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted
rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please
someone stop the parodies of modern major general.

The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise
the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical,
prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major
general!

And my reply:
That Tumblr post was clever but it didn't fool me very long - "The 
Elements" by Lehrer is a far too often mimicked song! The scansion
made it obvious and trivial to figure out, and furthermore the rhyme
scheme soon evaporated any doubt.

It took until the second paragraph to be completely sure - insertion
of "cacophonous" was blatant as it's too obscure. There's nothing
wrong with slanted rhymes if using them makes phrasing nice.  (I've
often tried to write them but regrettably I'm too precise.)

I kept on reading anyway in case of things I might have missed, but
sadly the conclusion failed to demonstrate a sudden twist. In short,
it mattered little, its position quite untenable.

Oh wait, it was a parody of Modern Major-General!