sashayed:

lierdumoa:

sashayed:

sashayed:

sashayed:

lierdumoa:

sashayed:

sashayed:

My name is Calfe
& Im too young
to know yet what do 
with my Toung!

So till my Mom say
“Dont Do That!”
Ill stick it out
And lik this cat.

My little Calfe,
Im proud of yu–
yur living like
the Big Cows do.
Yur doing just
what Mom have said–
for yu lik cat,
and cat 

lik bred.

Bad meme execution. 0/5 stars.

These poems are supposed to be imitative of 17th/18th century middle English poetry (pre-dating dictionaries and formalized spelling conventions) not early 2000s chatspeak, not babytalk.

These poems are also supposed to be in iambic diameter, giving them a pleasing songlike rhythm. The above has inconsistent syllabic structure from line to line.

These attributes are clearly illustrated in the prime:

So tired of people on this website and their flagrant disregard for syllabic structure.

No respect for the craft.

1. first of all, how dare you. i would never, N E V E R, put forth a cow poem with inconsistent syllabic structure. these may not be my finest work, but the iambic dimeter is IMPECCABLE. check my scansion again and come back to me. I guess “know what do yet” is not ideal, but it falls within the constraints of the form. i’m genuinely appalled by this. i have SEEN inconsistent scansion in this meme, i do NOT approve of it and i have NOT done it. how dare you. HOW DAR EYOU!!!

Secondly: it is not absurd to suppose that the linguistic constraints of a Cow Poem would depend on the figure to whom Cow speaks. In the original (and perfect) “i lik the bred,” the narrative cow, like a Chaucerian non-characterized narrator, directs her speech to an imagined and unspecific listener; not to “the men,” who are characters within the poem, but to some more general audience. (See the Canterbury Tales prologue for an example of this voice in action.) 

Later, poem_for_your_sprog has Cow address contemporaries like “dog.” You will notice that the voice of Cow varies slightly, in speaking to Dog, from her voice in the original “I lik the bred.” WHY, then, can we not extrapolate that Calfe – who is, after all, a narrator of limited capacity, being only a Baby Cow with a Baby Cow’s simplicity – would have its own variant voice? And why, too, would Cow not speak differently to her own Calfe than she does to an animal peer, or to reverent imaginary auditors? These are experiments within an emerging form – flawed experiments, certainly, but not mistakes ipso facto. Again: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!

my name is Cow,
and as yu see,
its worth yor tiyme
to studye me.
but if yu dont
like what yu red,

take 2 deep breths

and lik the bred.

I am willing to concede on second reading that the syllabic structure is passable, and in that regard I’ve wrongly impugned the integrity of your work, however I maintain that your Frankenstinian amalgam of fake middle English with fake modern American baby talk is thoroughly unconvincing as either middle English or as modern American baby talk.

It’s an aesthetic failure, IMH(inh)O*

You’ve created the linguistic equivalent of a spork — vitiating two perfectly serviceable tools by attempting to fuse them.

Writing ‘till mothere says / do not do that,’ would have conveyed roughly the same idea without feeling quite so awkwardly anachronistic.

My name is Rave,
and I can see
you’re bent on pa-
tronizing me!
”Anachronistic”
frankly seems 
a misplaced word 
to use of memes.
But since you want
to start that fight,
let’s step outside
and do this right.

Dude: if you want 
to not get wrecked
you’d better get 
your facts correct.

Like, “Mothere,” friend,
is not a word
that Geoffrey Chau-
cer ever heard.*

(*”Mooder” would be period-accurate, and also a good cow word.)

What’s more, the “eight-
teenth century”
has zip to do 
with, um, “M.E.”
And it’s not spelled
“diameter.”
What are you, pal,
an amateur?

I am not Chaucer
or John Donne
but if you try
to spoil my fun
with words you learned
in English class –

don’t come for me. 
I’ll kik yur ass.