h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I like accidental poetry

We're going to need some examples now. I bet there are websites.

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If it wasn't deliberate it must be an accident.

Yes...but what I'm wondering is whether I'm imposing my own interpretation on an accident...or whether what I'm getting out is what Yeats deliberately put in. Or even accidentally put in but then left them there because he saw what he'd done and it worked.

But consider:
"Nine bean rows shall I have, a hive for the honey bee,
And live aloud in the bee-loud glade."

Now, if *I* were writing a poem, I wouldn't know what I was doing, so I'd probably think, "Hmm. Better not put in two bees." The fact that Yeats did suggests to me that it was deliberate.

Like this?

http://foundpoetry.wordpress.com/

I did a google and it was the first one that caught my eye. There seem to be quite a few lesson plans out there around the subject so someone somewhere is teaching about this in class.

and from the links on that it seems a certain Mr. Rumsfeld is a bit of past master at this!

Damn! You just beat me to it.

Then there's Adrian Henri's cut-up poem:

"I wandered lonely as a
New Fast Automatic
Daffodil"

(hence the 1990's 'baggy'-era band of the same name)

In 'The Last Will and Testament of Adrian Henri', he requests that his poems be cut up and distributed in public lavatories - presumably to be re-formed as a medical textbook for Dr Benway.

"The East Lancs Road and all its environs, I leave to the people."

Just reading this article with Simon Pegg about USA vs. UK humour and how it isn't so different. The reason I mention it is this phrase "As the global village conurbates," at the start of the 9th paragraph. I thought it was a really good turn of phrase that conveyed the meaning succinctly.
Or is it a common term that I just haven't come across till now?

Too much conurbation, that's what's wrong with this country.

Ictoan, I don't think it is that great a phrase. Conurbation means one built up settlement - which is exactly what 'global village' was meant to mean when it was introduced - the growing together and interconnectedness of all parts of the globe. I'm not sure I really understand what is meant by a village conurbating.

If village=good and conurbation = bad then I think it does say a little more. The Golbal village has a wholesome feel to it. You can leave your doors open and your next door neighbour will give your child a drink and a sandwich if they find them hungry when they are playing out.

The conurbation smacks of locked doors, high fences and people desperate to keep their own space separate from that of their neighbour.

Hmmm, I don't think those implications are what was meant though. If they are, what was meant I think they could be more clearly put.

Ignore the rogue comma. *That* could have been more clearly put!

I think what Vestboy says is what I got from it.
I think the term chosen ('global village' as opposed to global city or anything) is important as it represents some sort of utopia or idyll (well, ok, not *that* strong). And in the terms of local politics connurbations are bad things. I think it ties in with more people, more commercialisation and an increasing awareness and perhaps occurence of crime.

conurbates !??

If a new word is needed, it has to be conurbanises, surely?

Thanks ictoan - I'd noticed 'conurbates' too, but I'd forgotten to mention it.

I think that 'conurbate' is more elegant than 'conurbanise'. It doesn't matter. It's brand new word. We're allowed to do that in English, it being a semi-agglutinative language. We can agglutinate - or agglutinatise - or agglutinise - all we like.

Conurbify?

>> *Jumps up and down in the back row, waving arms*
Me too. <<


Aye, I also, Aye!



~jwf~

>> Conurbify? <<

best of the three

But settlements agglomerate.

Perfectly good word that's served us well over the centuries so need for another, particularly one that sounds so manustuprative

On second thoughts, I've come down against 'conurbation'. It wouldn't work. From the verb meaning 'to form a conurbation', we would need to derive a noun for 'the process of forming a conurbation'. This gives us:
Conurbanise -> Conurbanisation
Conurbify -> Conurbification
Conurbate -> ...guess what?...Conurbation. Which is where we started.

I now propose a hybrid somewhere between 'conurbation' and 'to coalesce':
Conurbesce -> Conurbescence

conurbation = polypolis -> polypolitanise