“Someone can go through and fix the prosody.” Do you consider this a friendly amendment?
Little Johnny Bayesian thought he was very bright But the other schoolkids mocked him every time he came in sight He could count and sing and read; he could spell and guess the weather Until one day, Big Bill told him real bright boys could grow a feather.
“Ach” he cried, his spirits sinking, “Could a thing like that be true “That would mean I must be dumb, and being stupid makes me blue!” He went home and massaged his scalp until it hurt all over Till at last he felt a growth shoot out, just like a little clover
“It’s true!” he cried with glee, “It’s true, and I’ve got feathers sprouting” His intelligence now certain, he grew calm and stopped his pouting He ran to show his mother that he hadn’t been all wrong When he heard on television: “Real bright children’s legs grow long.”
So he strained for days and weeks and months to try to get the proof Worried sick about his brightness and remaining quite aloof Till at last he took his measurement, and it had been a cinch In the days he had been fretting he had grown his legs an inch!
So he skipped to school, but as he went a scientist passed by And he muttered that his research showed that real bright boys could fly And Johnny thought of what he’d learned, his feathers and his height And in a flash, he grew convinced he had the gift of flight.
Little Johnny spent a while planning his display He thought he’d stand upon a wall, and proudly he would say Behold my feathers! See my legs! I’ve evidence I’m bright! And dazzle all his friends by soaring off and taking flight.
He climbed the wall and smiled and he proudly gave his speech He took a flying leap – and there his plan stopped with a screech Instead of soaring throught the skies, he heard an awful SMACK And looked up, dazed, to find his leg all bloody, blue, and black
His classmates started laughing, and he struggled to explain The logic that implied he had a more than normal brain His friends, his favorite TV show, the scientists—all knew That he was smart, and if they said it, surely it was true?
They laughed and said “You’re just too eager to believe, you fool Your feathers are just hair, and boys grow taller as a rule If what you heard was really true, you’d fly without a doubt But putting garbage in your logic gets you garbage out.
So Johnny made a bad mistake and ended with a cast He’d looked for schoolyard fame, but now those days are long gone past He’s learned his lesson: don’t go trusting everything they say You get brightness from clear thinking—and not any other way.
LIT-tle john-ny BAYE-si-an once THOUGHT he was real BRIGHT
BUT the o-ther KIDS would al-ways MOCK him day and NIGHT
HE could count and SING and read and SPELL and guess the WEA-ther
TILL one day big BILL told him bright BOYS could grow a FEA-ther
“ACH” he cried, his SPI-rits down, “could THIS be real-ly TRUE?”
“THAT would mean I MUST be dumb, and THAT would make me BLUE!”
HOME, he went, and RUBBED his scalp till IT had hurt all O-ver
THEN, at last, he FELT a growth, ’twas JUST like a small CLO-ver
“WOW” he cried with GLEE and said “it’s TRUE, I’ve got them SPROU-ting”
This is about as far as I could get before I ran out of time. The next line is “His intelligence now certain, he grew calm and stopped his pouting” but I can’t seem to get the accent to land on the first syllable. I’m stuck with “in-TEL-li-gence” and “wis-DOM now cer-tain” sounds more natural to me than “WIS-dom now cert-ain”. So someone else will have to take over from here.
In a lot of old poems, fire is just one syllable, and fiery two. I imagine real could be similarly condensed. In the most widely accepted english translation of the Kalevala (Finnish national epic), fire is never two syllables. I always found that strange because I pronounce it “fie-urr”.
I think one-syllable “fire” is more common in British English. (When I have access to a more convenient Web browser than my phone’s, if I remember to, I’ll dig up relevant posts from John C. Wells’s blog.)
See here about words like “fire”. IIRC he also considers “real” to be varisyllabic; and probably there are people out there who pronounce “Bayesian” with two syllables, to rhyme with (young people’s pronunciation of) “Asian”¹. (I can find many posts about compression and smoothing but none which summarizes it all.)
I read that some old people pronounce “Asian” to rhyme with “nation”.
“Someone can go through and fix the prosody.”
Do you consider this a friendly amendment?
Little Johnny Bayesian thought he was very bright
But the other schoolkids mocked him every time he came in sight
He could count and sing and read; he could spell and guess the weather
Until one day, Big Bill told him real bright boys could grow a feather.
“Ach” he cried, his spirits sinking, “Could a thing like that be true
“That would mean I must be dumb, and being stupid makes me blue!”
He went home and massaged his scalp until it hurt all over
Till at last he felt a growth shoot out, just like a little clover
“It’s true!” he cried with glee, “It’s true, and I’ve got feathers sprouting”
His intelligence now certain, he grew calm and stopped his pouting
He ran to show his mother that he hadn’t been all wrong
When he heard on television: “Real bright children’s legs grow long.”
So he strained for days and weeks and months to try to get the proof
Worried sick about his brightness and remaining quite aloof
Till at last he took his measurement, and it had been a cinch
In the days he had been fretting he had grown his legs an inch!
So he skipped to school, but as he went a scientist passed by
And he muttered that his research showed that real bright boys could fly
And Johnny thought of what he’d learned, his feathers and his height
And in a flash, he grew convinced he had the gift of flight.
Little Johnny spent a while planning his display
He thought he’d stand upon a wall, and proudly he would say
Behold my feathers! See my legs! I’ve evidence I’m bright!
And dazzle all his friends by soaring off and taking flight.
He climbed the wall and smiled and he proudly gave his speech
He took a flying leap – and there his plan stopped with a screech
Instead of soaring throught the skies, he heard an awful SMACK
And looked up, dazed, to find his leg all bloody, blue, and black
His classmates started laughing, and he struggled to explain
The logic that implied he had a more than normal brain
His friends, his favorite TV show, the scientists—all knew
That he was smart, and if they said it, surely it was true?
They laughed and said “You’re just too eager to believe, you fool
Your feathers are just hair, and boys grow taller as a rule
If what you heard was really true, you’d fly without a doubt
But putting garbage in your logic gets you garbage out.
So Johnny made a bad mistake and ended with a cast
He’d looked for schoolyard fame, but now those days are long gone past
He’s learned his lesson: don’t go trusting everything they say
You get brightness from clear thinking—and not any other way.
This has a better meter, but it’s not quite fully consistent yet. I think the first line (with a few tiny modifications) has a good rhythm to it:
LIT-tle john-ny BAYE-si-an once THOUGHT he was real BRIGHT
ONE two three four ONE two three four ONE two three four ONE
The trick is then to get all the other lines to follow the same beat.
I’ll look into trying to get the whole thing converted to one beat, but I don’t promise anything.
LIT-tle john-ny BAYE-si-an once THOUGHT he was real BRIGHT
BUT the o-ther KIDS would al-ways MOCK him day and NIGHT
HE could count and SING and read and SPELL and guess the WEA-ther
TILL one day big BILL told him bright BOYS could grow a FEA-ther
“ACH” he cried, his SPI-rits down, “could THIS be real-ly TRUE?”
“THAT would mean I MUST be dumb, and THAT would make me BLUE!”
HOME, he went, and RUBBED his scalp till IT had hurt all O-ver
THEN, at last, he FELT a growth, ’twas JUST like a small CLO-ver
“WOW” he cried with GLEE and said “it’s TRUE, I’ve got them SPROU-ting”
This is about as far as I could get before I ran out of time. The next line is “His intelligence now certain, he grew calm and stopped his pouting” but I can’t seem to get the accent to land on the first syllable. I’m stuck with “in-TEL-li-gence” and “wis-DOM now cer-tain” sounds more natural to me than “WIS-dom now cert-ain”. So someone else will have to take over from here.
re-al = two syllables
THOUGHT that he was BRIGHT
In a lot of old poems, fire is just one syllable, and fiery two. I imagine real could be similarly condensed. In the most widely accepted english translation of the Kalevala (Finnish national epic), fire is never two syllables. I always found that strange because I pronounce it “fie-urr”.
I think one-syllable “fire” is more common in British English. (When I have access to a more convenient Web browser than my phone’s, if I remember to, I’ll dig up relevant posts from John C. Wells’s blog.)
See here about words like “fire”. IIRC he also considers “real” to be varisyllabic; and probably there are people out there who pronounce “Bayesian” with two syllables, to rhyme with (young people’s pronunciation of) “Asian”¹. (I can find many posts about compression and smoothing but none which summarizes it all.)
I read that some old people pronounce “Asian” to rhyme with “nation”.
I foresee a comment-threading nightmare. We definitely need a wiki to collaborate on this.
Excellent!