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[personal profile] andrewducker
I've ended up writing a couple of haikus in different places recently. In one post [livejournal.com profile] ozarque asked for haiku about linguistics. I particularly like 2,3 and 6 (and will admit to a certain guilty pleasure in 4).

The map is not the
territory. Nor does the
menu taste like food.

===

Dictionary fun.
I trace meanings to their source.
Infinite Regress.

===

My speech is impure
Words plundered from everywhere
This gives it power

===

Someone says "Linguist".
My inner twelve-year-old asks
"But are they cunning?"

===

Precision's an end
Generality another
You can pull both ways

===

Verbing is, like, so
last week our verbal patterns
were drawn in the sand

===========

And a while back, [livejournal.com profile] hirez was talking about poststructuralism when [livejournal.com profile] easterbunny asked for an explanation of the difference between structuralism and poststructuralism in the form of a haiku. And how can one resist a challenge like that?

No space for authors
now, in this, our winter of
Infinite Regress

alternatively:

Modernism falls
like the outdated leaves of
discarded meaning

Date: 2008-05-22 04:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] likeneontubing.livejournal.com
my dad writes entire emails in haiku. strange indeed.
isn't a haiku meant to be 5,7,5? it really bugs me with things like precision, as i'd have it being pre-cis-ion and generality as gen-er-al-ity. is it just my accent?

Date: 2008-05-22 07:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] likeneontubing.livejournal.com
yay :D

i like reading haiku games. i do get bothered by silly perfectionist things though. tis why i hardly ever create stuff myself. always *something* wrong with it.

Date: 2008-05-23 12:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fannymagnate.livejournal.com
Haiku are measured in morae, not syllables:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)

Which pretty much means you have to write them in Japanese. Anything else is just a three line poem.

Date: 2008-05-22 05:39 pm (UTC)
ext_267: Photo of DougS, who has a round face with thinning hair and a short beard (Default)
From: [identity profile] dougs.livejournal.com
I wish I could have
one guilty pleasure in four:
Not a bad strike rate.

Date: 2008-05-23 12:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chuma.livejournal.com
Having sentences that go over lines in Haiku seems to defeat the object of them. Also they have been done to death.

Date: 2008-05-23 12:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chuma.livejournal.com
Doesn't seem to be anything particularly artistic about people finding a sentence or two that add up to 17 syllables. It's like a poetry for beginners thing to me.

Date: 2008-05-23 12:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chuma.livejournal.com
I can't work out if you're trying to make a point or agreeing with me; photography can be art or it can just be taking a picture of something. I see a difference, just as I see a difference between painting a canvas and painting a house.

Date: 2008-05-23 12:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chuma.livejournal.com
Mostly I found the last one to be pretentious. I'm not expecting us to agree on "what is art" as frankly it is very much subjective. However, I think of Haiku as having been bastardized through it's overuse. I fail to see the beauty in playing the piano if that person is playing Chopsticks, for instance.

Date: 2008-05-23 01:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chuma.livejournal.com
I thought we would, but I think it is one of those discussions with no "right" answer, just points to discuss.

Date: 2008-05-23 07:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] surliminal.livejournal.com
actually I liked the last one best - possibly because I agree with it:-)

for no. 4

Date: 2008-05-23 07:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aliiis.livejournal.com
argh argh argh argh argh
people ALWAYS do that joke
argh argh argh argh argh

/linguist :)

Date: 2008-05-23 10:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aliiis.livejournal.com
P.S. I think I like the first one the most perhaps. Mmmm Sapir-Whorfy.

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