CHAT: Purple Cow (was Sensory Infixes in rtemmu )

On 12 June, John Cowan wrote:


> It's true I wrote the "Purple Cow";
> I wish I never wrote it.
> But I can tell you anyhow,
> I'll kill you if you quote it.
>         --Gelett Burgess, twenty years later.

    Aw, c'mon, John. Don't make me play George Lucas
and give the folks Chapter One long  _after_  they've seen
a later chapter! ;-)
    Oh, very well!  :-)  The original poem goes:

                I never saw a purple cow,
                I never hope to see one;
                But I can tell you, anyhow,
                I'd rather see than be one.

According to the version on
       www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/120.html

the poem had a title almost as long as the poem itself:

                The Purple Cow's Projected Feast
                Reflections on a Mythic Beast
                Who's Quite Remarkable, at Least


The reply, writtten after Burgess had become remembered
more or less only for this, to the exclusion of everything
else he had written, also apparently had a title:

                CONFESSION: and a Portrait, Too,
                Upon a Background that I Rue!


(to nitpick, the second poem is given at the above site as:

        Ah, Yes! I Wrote the "Purple Cow"--
        I'm Sorry, now, I Wrote it!
        But I can Tell you Anyhow,
        I'll Kill you if you Quote it!  )


Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a

A word is an awesome thing.

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