[787] in Humor
HUMOR: Lipogramming Gilbert
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Fri Mar 24 13:28:12 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 13:21:47 EST
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 95 09:12:24 PST
From: Connie_Kleinjans@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
From: janos@netcom.com (Janos Gereben)
Nobody could do this better than Sondheim himself, but he may
not be available, so it's up to us.
Lipograms are now all the rave in England where Georges Perec's
novel, `A Void,' has been translated by Gilbert Adair. Both the
French original and the English versions, about 300 pages each,
contain not a single E, by far the most common letter in both
languages. So, `lipogramming' is rewriting (NO, modifying)
text by finding good replacement words without the vulgar E
(of course, to assure case-sensitive UNIX types, `e' as well).
James Kincaid, in his NY Times review of `A Void,' gives the
following example from `The Pirates of Penzance':
Here's a first-rate opportunity What a damn good opportunity
To get married with impunity. Ho! to marry with impunity.
And indulge in the felicity And to wallow in the jollity
Of unbounded domesticity. Of suburbanist frivolity! [Boo]
You shall quickly be parsonified Think about a happy you and I
Conjugally matrimonified Matrimonially sharing our own sty.
By a doctor of divinity, Thanks to a doctor of divinity,
Who resides in this vicinity. Who hangs out in this vicinity.
Let's start, appropriately enough, with `Agony.'
Janos.
