Comments on: Acclimatized

By: New things for Friday « Very Like A Whale

New things for Friday « Very Like A Whale — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:40:33 +0000

[...] Nobody had better pretend they know what a wellerism is.Â Who knew? See what Dave at Via NegativaÂ has done with the concept. Very nice. Posted in poetry, other news | [...]

By: quiet regular reader

quiet regular reader — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 21:41:44 +0000

fun!
thanks

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:12:24 +0000

Also, it occurs to me that a more Welleresque wellerism for my next-to-last would be:

It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, as the lobster said when they took him for his last swim.

I do recommend The Pickwick Papers for anyone who might be looking for good bedtime reading — it’s a rollicking, picaresque series of tales in the style of the 18th century that gradually morphs into a 19th-century novel, and you get a good sense where Dickens’ style came from. Also, my brother maintains with some justification that Sam Weller was Tolkien’s model for Sam Gamgee, for all you LOTR fans.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:03:06 +0000

it’s so wonderful to finally get some light in here, thought the railworker deep inside the tunnel

Now there’s one worthy of Sam Weller!

By: Lori Witzel

Lori Witzel — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 03:43:20 +0000

Dave, would that the world were as creative when uninspired.

(And it’s so wonderful to finally get some light in here, thought the railworker deep inside the tunnel.)

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 21:01:08 +0000

Thanks for the feedback, mb. I’ve been feeling guilty that I didn’t try and write more of these, but I’ve been strangely lacking in inspiration lately. Gotta just keep plugging ahead, as the lemming said.

By: mb

mb — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 20:48:56 +0000

Glad to know about wellerisms and enjoyed these. I did understand the lobster line without the second sentence, but then I’ve actually done that to a lobster. Once. (But would it have worked with a frog, I wonder. The wellerism, I mean.)

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:55:40 +0000

Thanks. I didn’t know until I read the Wikipedia article that Charles Dickens must’ve borrowed the form from the Dutch. I’d always thought he’d invented it out of whole cloth for his character Sam Weller in The Pickwick Papers (whence “wellerism”).

By: marja-leena

marja-leena — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:30:37 +0000

Enjoyable indeed, and I didn’t know this form is called wellerism. Thanks, Dave, I’m always learning something interesting here.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 14:10:53 +0000

Thanks for the comment. I could add a phrase to that if it's too obscure, though I was trying to avoid making these lines into full-fledged wellerisms. [Later] After checking with another reader, I decided to add a second sentence to the lobster part. Hope it's clearer now.