Ladle Rat Rotten Hut?
Stephen Twelker
Does this look familiar to anyone?
Many years ago a college professor rewrote the story of Little Red
Riding Hood, substituting homonyms and near-homonyms for the storybook
text. I'm looking for the full text of the story. It's very, very
amusing. Does anyone have this, and if so, could you post it?
Thanks in advance,
Stephen Twelker
twe...@ide.com
Ha Li
Stephen Twelker <twe...@ide.com> wrote:
>Many years ago a college professor rewrote the story of Little Red
>Riding Hood, substituting homonyms and near-homonyms for the storybook
>text. I'm looking for the full text of the story. It's very, very
>amusing. Does anyone have this, and if so, could you post it?
I could swear it was in Willard R. Espy's _Words_at_Play_, but I've just
looked through both volumes and cannot find it.
Espy calls this type of thing "anguish languish" and says it was popularized
by the late Howard L. Chace. He gives a classic example, part of which I'll
reproduce here:
Spaghettibird Headdress
bar Labour Ham Winking
Fors oar in shaving ear she goes, awful fodders broad fart hunter dish
consonant hay noon action, corn sieved inebriety and addict hated tutor
preposition dot omen or crated inkwell.
Recognize it? :-)
Now, there are several other little games. One which fooled Espy for a while
was a collection of verses in an "extinct French dialect", complete with
elaborate annotations to each verse which sufficiently obscured what was
really going on. Here's an example of that (I'll have to leave off the
annotations, though):
Et qui rit des cure's d'Oc?
De Meuse raines, houp! de cloques.
De quelles loques ce turque coin.
Et ne d'a^nes ni rennes.
E'curies des cure's d'Oc.
My favorite is in a section titled "Fairy Tales al Dante", which tells the
story of "Di Tri Berrese" (The Three Bears) and "Giacche Enne Binnestaucche"
(Jack and the Beanstalk). It looks Italian, but it's really English (e.g.
"Uans appona taim usse disse boi. Neimmese Giacche. Naise boi. Live uite
ise mamma. Mainde da cao...").
I've often thought that there ought to be an alt.wordplay or something where
people can play around with the type of stuff that shows up in Espy's books.
Some clever things I've seen are: "Mary Had a Little Lamb" rewritten six times,
excluding in turn the letters s, h, t, e, and a. In the final verse, just
half the alphabet is used. Another little exercise is called "Eve's Legend",
which is fairly good sized work where the only vowel used is "e". Such a
newsgroup would also be a good place for orthographic games and the self-
referential and self-constructing sentences popularized by Douglas Hofstadter.
-Dave
,----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| / |
| Dave Munroe / Hewlett-Packard |
| dmu...@vcd.hp.com / Vancouver, Washington |
| / |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Henry B. Velick
}
} Does this look familiar to anyone?
}
} Many years ago a college professor rewrote the story of Little Red
} Riding Hood, substituting homonyms and near-homonyms for the storybook
} text. I'm looking for the full text of the story. It's very, very
} amusing. Does anyone have this, and if so, could you post it?
It's from a book titled _Anguish Languish_, although the author's
name escapes me. I grew up with the book. My parents still have it, I
presume, but they are some 1300 miles distant. I don't think the author
used any actual homonyms, only words that sounded similar. Often he
substituted one word for several, or vice versa. From memory, the best I
can provide of the story is:
Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull, hoe lift wetter
mutter inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge dock florist.
Disk putty ladle gull orphan worry rat hut. Fur disk raison,
pimple colder "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut."
It goes on in this fashion for several pages, and includes such
characters as Ladle Rat Rotten Hut's groin-murder, and the anomalous
woof. The book contains several more stories and quite a few poems, of
which the few that I still can recall at all include "Casing Otter Bet,"
(Casey at the Bat), and an eponymous entry.
The book is wonderful, and most certainly out of print. I can't
imagine what my parents would want for their copy, but if I can get it,
I'll post a story or two.
} Thanks in advance,
}
} Stephen Twelker
} twe...@ide.com
Don't mention it.
- Henry
--
\-- Henry Velick \ Millions long for immortality, who don't know what \
\-- Austin, Texas \ to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. \
\-- 512-479-8665 \ ----------------------------------- Susan Ertz \
\-- Datalingus - Purveyors of Fine Graphics Software and Consultation \
Ha Li
Stephen Twelker <twe...@ide.com> wrote:
>
>Does this look familiar to anyone?
>
>Many years ago a college professor rewrote the story of Little Red
>Riding Hood, substituting homonyms and near-homonyms for the storybook
>text. I'm looking for the full text of the story.
OK -- I finally found it:
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut by H.L. Chace
Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift
wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch off
lodge, dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty
ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, and fur disk raisin,
pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
Wan moaning, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut's murder colder
inset.
"Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome
burden barter and shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking
tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site
offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! Dun
stopper peck floors! Dun daily-doily inner florist, an yonder
nor sorghum-stenches, dun stoper torque wet strainers!"
"Hoe-cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten, and
tickle ladle basking an stutter oft.
Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat
Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof.
"Wail, wail, wail!" set disk wicket woof, "Evanescent
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard
ladle basking?"
"Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle
gull. "grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden
barter an shirker cockles."
"O hoe! Heifer gnats woke," setter wicket woof, butter
taught tomb shelf,"Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer
groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den -- O bore!"
Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinny retched
a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner windrow, an sore
debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh,
disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet, paunched honor pore oil
worming, an garbled erupt. Den disk ratchet ammonol pot honor
groin-murder's nut cup and gnat-gun, any curdled ope inner
bet.
Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar
cordage, an ranker dough ball. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter
wicket woof, disgracing is verse.
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity bet rum, and stud buyer
groin-murder's bet.
"O Grammar!" crater ladle historically, "Water bag icer
gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"
"Battered lucky chew whiff, sweat hard," setter
bloat-Thursday woof, wetter wicket small honors phase.
"O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture
anomalous prognosis!"
"Battered small your whiff, doling," whiskered dole
woof, ants mouse worse waddling.
"O Grammar, water bag mouser gut! A nervous sore
suture bag mouse!"
Daze worry on-forger-nut ladle gull's lest warts. Oil
offer sodden, caking offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet,
disk hoard-hoarded woof lipped own pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
and garbled erupt.
MURAL: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls
stopper torque wet strainers.