double dactyl

Over at Boing Boing there was a post about a prose piece written by graphic artist which concerns the current treatment of anti-war protesters in America. I thought the piece was a funny and accurate caricature of the situation, but when I looked in the Discussion section for the post there was only one comment, which read in its entirety "moronic gibberish".

It occured to me that "moronic gibberish" was a double dactyl. What is a double dactyl? The (more or less) official Double Dactyl website states that:

A dactyl, as you may know, is a poetic foot of the form +-- (ON-off-off). For example, interstate, realize, microphone, cereal, limerick, etc. etc. A double dactyl, naturally enough, is two dactyls in a row.

and furthermore

A double dactyl is also a poem, a form [...] Quite like a limerick, it has a rigid (if peculiar) structure. Two stanzas, each comprising three lines of dactylic dimeter followed by a line with a dactyl and a single accent. The two stanzas have to rhyme on their last line. The first line of the first stanza is repetitive nonsense. The second line of the first stanza is somebody's name [...] In the second stanza, one entire line must be a double-dactylic word. E.g. biopsychology...

I've always wanted to write a Double Dactyl. The first step is to come up with a name which works. It has to be six syllables and double dactylic. For instance Jesus of Nazareth and Gloria Vanderbilt would work, but Dav Coleman (on on off) or Mie Kennedy (on off on off off) would not. The first name I came up with was Julia Butterfly but I've as of yet been unable to produce a decent effort on that front so my thoughts of double dactylic creativity had been stalled (it'll have to be a good one, I know her so I can't make it half-assed).

But I decided to try to come up with something using "moronic gibberish" and did manage to come up with something (half-assed), so here it is, my first Double Dactyl:

Rub-a-dub Dub-a-dub!
U.S.A. President,
wasn't elected but
he's living large.

Moronic gibberish
spouts from his speeches, like
"misunderestimate"
And he's in charge?

I just realized Osama Bin Laden is almost double dactylic (it's On off off off ON off), perhaps enough to give him similar treatment when I get the chance...

Comments

[William]

moronic gibberish is not a double dactyl in most standard dialects of american english.

[Dav]

True (I assume you're talking about moronic), but colloquially it's often pronounced in a dactylic fashion (especially when ranting), which is good enough for me. Double Dactyls are more like limericks than high art, after all.

[John Abbe]

Not quite there (racked my brains but couldn't come up with six syllables of a compassion-rooted word), but then i don't know her :)

Hug-a-hug Hug-a-hug
Julia Butterfly
She's a tree hugger who
does it with style

Even with Luna hurt
She didn't turn to hate
Compassionately she
cried and then smiled

[Dav Coleman]

Hey that's a pretty good start.... damn, now I gotta really come up with one.