It seems to be all chance encounters this week. I was googling that poem that occasionally does the rounds, that demonstrates the foolishness of relying on a spell-checker to do your proofreading for you (”Eye halve a spelling chequer,/ it came with my pea sea…”), when I chanced across something I have known by heart since I was about eleven.
It was a treasure, a mimeographed typescript which had been given to my mother before I was born… perhaps she can fill us in on the clever friend who gave it to her. As a kid I was always under the impression that my mother’s old friend had written this, as well as others like it – it had an aura of my fantasy 1950s New York clinging to it – but I now know that it was written in 1940 by one Howard L Chace. He was a high-school French teacher, I don’t know where, who was seeking to impress on his students the supremacy of intonation in English, and what a difficult language we speak.
It was published in 1956 as part of a book called Anguish Languish, after being read out on TV by a famous presenter called Arthur Godfrey, back in the day when a break like that could give a small bagatelle a real start in the world. It has been out of print ever since (though, fret not: the book seems to be here). I saved the typescript, committed it to memory, xeroxed it and put it in my folder of special things, and still have it. We did have a couple of others; I remember being disappointed by the Goldilocks one; but I didn’t save them.
Not sure what that tells you about the small Baroque, except that she was perhaps not quite as other children…
Anyway, here it is:
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
“Wants pawn term dare worsted ladle gull, how lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage honor itch offer lodge, dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry Putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
Wan moaning Ladle Rat Rotten Hut’s murder colder inset.
‘Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! Dun stopper peck floors! Dun daily-doily inner florist, an yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!’
‘Hoe-cake, murder,’ resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft.
Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof.
‘Wail, wail, wail!’ set disk wicket woof, ‘Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?’
‘Armor goring tumor groin-murder’s,” reprisal ladle gull. “Grammar’s seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles.’
‘0 hoe! Heifer gnats woke,’ setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, ‘Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den– O bore!’
Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinny retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner windrow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet, paunched honor pore oil worming, an garbled erupt. Den disk ratchet ammonol pot honor groin-murder’s nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled ope inner bet.
Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough ball. ‘Comb ink, sweat hard,’ setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse…”
2 Comments
June 14, 2008 at 9:18 pm
It’s funny, but as I read “mimeographed typescript,” I thought, “I bet it’s Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.” It was my Mom’s cousin who had the mimeograph of it in my family. I found it on-line recently and read it to Miles, my eight-year-old, who thought it was hysterical.
June 15, 2008 at 12:44 pm
That’s very funny, Andrew – I love it! It must be one of those things. “Every family has its Ladle Rat Rotten Hut…”