Don't bother looking up these words. They won't be in your English dictionary. I made them up. It's up to you to make them mean something.
Think of Jabberwocky. Words like gyre and gimbel -- now part of the astronauts lexicon -- didn't exist until Lewis Carroll invented them. He made them mean and subsequent poets -- including W. B. Yeats -- used them to expand the language.
What is required of you is a simple pair of quatrains rhyming abab cdcd:
| a | zeer | theer |
| b | chate | glate |
| c | oostem | yoosfem |
| d | thrornge | kvorange |
Think of the great contribution you'll be making to the English language! Words that rhyme with orange!
Post the results to your blog with a link back to this article or attach a comment with your masterpiece.
The next set of rhymes shall appear on June 1.
Posted by Joel at May 15, 2004 12:00 AM | TrackBackI have a life; really.
For my rhyme, please see: http://www.greentruck.org/2004/archives/000127.html
I don't do so well with nonsense because I am too terse, I think.
Mmm I have no life.
I hopped into my zeer,
grabbed hold of the chate,
made like a theer,
and headed for the glate.
I could see the oostem.
Just above the thrornge,
he sat, in a yoosfem,
choking on my kvorange.
gafump to our chizly zeer
ingleby dingly glate
choombo out herm froingy theer
Smangerome Slimishy chate
Bethonkingly on the ranisty oostem
We quinked and skrished the kvorange
Hupper to monsieeya yoosfem
For drakey in the sleefisum thrornge
What image does this conjure up in your head? Or elsewhere in your body? (Disclaimer: I was the amanuensis for my girlfriend, Nurse Ophelia, on this one. And she is sort of crazy as you can plainly see.)
Posted by: zhaf at May 16, 2004 04:40 PM“I must confess,” he said as he sighed, “that my life began to zeer
It was full of ups and downs, and I cried, I couldn’t stand the chate.
I needed to know what to do, how to act, so I went to see a theer-
The lights were dimmed the candles lit, as I put my money on the glate.
She said that it was difficult to see, the crystal ball was oostem,
A shadowy figure, dark and tall seemed to be hidden in the thornge.
‘It could be someone you know,’ she said, ‘or it could be a shadow of yoosfem.’
But as soon as I’d paid for the ring on her hand, she said he was wearing a kvorange.”
I just got a card reading "Congrats on your Zeer!"
then my heart swelled with joy and I danced on the chate,
(I bought my new Zeer from the Zeer store named "Theer"
and I paid a quarter the price that I paid for my glate.)
My Zeer is much better than that piece of crap Oostem,
It died right after I bought it and fed it some thrornge.
So I buried the dead pet under leaved Yoosfems,
And held onto my Zeer while drinking cold Kvorange.
Well nonsense is not my forte, but I figured it would be a good exercise. I ended up going for help at the Nonsensicon, which is a wonderful site. It says it is a "Linguabsurdomat n. A device used to automatically generate nonsensical words."
Here is what I came up with:
Dipnerda watched Dowsooda zeer.
He zootabiffed the ganor chate.
When suddenly nosirga theer,
so voogied on to its own glate.
Dipnerda saw the funfing oostem
and sneed gasouta on the thrornge.
So then Dowsooda cried and yoosfem
It was too late scen foota kvorange.
... It's also posted on my site here
I hope you haven't discontinued this. Is there going to be a June 1 post?
Posted by: Vic... at June 7, 2004 07:57 AM