Ogden Nash, 1902-1971

[VSarkiss]

This year is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ogden Nash, who's probably best known for his short works, which are full of whimsy and humor. Here is some good information about him and his poetry.

The short works are fun to Perl-ify. Here are a couple of weak ones from me.

# The Cow
#    by Ogden Nash
#
# The cow is of the bovine ilk;
# One end is moo, the other, milk.
#
package cow;
@ISA = qw(bovine);
push @cow, 'moo';
unshift @cow, 'milk';

Here's one many will recognize:

# Reflections on Ice-Breaking
#     by Ogden Nash
#
# Candy
# Is Dandy
# But liquor
# Is quicker.

package candy;
@ISA = qw(dandy);
package liquor;
1;

I know people here can do much better. Add your contributions below.

[jeffa]

# THE FLY
#   by Ogden Nash
# God in his wisdom made the fly
# And then forgot to tell us why.

$wisdom = sub {new creation 'fly'};
undef $wisdom unless fork;

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

[djantzen]

I think I'd change the second one from @ISA = qw(dandy); to something like  push (@attributes, 'dandy'); to avoid equivocating on the meaning of 'is', which can mean the category in which a being properly resides, as in The Cow, or equality (i.e., "A horse is a horse"), or an assignment of a property to an object, as in Ice-Breaking.

My first Perl poem, actually, my first poem at all since eighth grade, but here goes:

Reflection on Caution
by Ogden Nash

Affection is a noble quality;
It leads to generosity and jollity.
But it also leads to breach of promise
If you go around lavishing it on red-hot momise

$affection = 'noble' and
  do { $generosity++; $jollity++ };
warn --$promise
  if push @red_hot_momise, $affection;

[sauoq]

A variation of "Reflections on Ice-Breaking":

sub candy  { sleep 10; 'dandy' }
sub liquor { 'quicker' }

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

[tbone1]

How about:

# A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of

@array=('dog', 'door', 'right side');
while (1)
{
  ($array[0],$array[2]) = ($array[2],$array[0]);
}

--
tbone1
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

[Anonymous Monk]

haha you rock. =) -a.non.cowuhd

[sauoq]

# The Ant
# by Ogden Nash
# The ant has made himself illustrious
# Through constant industry industrious
# So what?
# Would you be calm and placid
# If you were full of formic acid?

sub ant { bless \my $self }

sub make {
    $self = shift;
    use constant INDUSTRY => 'industrious';
    $$self = INDUSTRY;
    $$self =~ s/nd/ll/;
    bless $self;
}

$ant = ant();
$ant->make();

if (0 or 1) {
    $you = ($you=~/^(formic acid)+$/ and int rand 2) ? 'calm and placi
+d' : '';
}

Update: Wow. Thanks a lot VSarkiss! I've never realized just how fun perl poetry actually was. I'm hooked now. An annotated version. . .

Read more... (1088 Bytes)

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";