Re: The Hyena Chorus
That's right, Lather. We have a chorus here, not a chorale, which would be too ambitious anyway. :-)
1) You want to ditch "ye"? By all means, ditch it. The only point I wanted to make is that the line in question should be iambic tetrameter, like the preceding ones. (The last line, the echo, should be in trimeter.) "Y'all" is too colloquial for the likes of us. But there are all kinds of alternatives:
So join us in the lab, the lab,
So join us in the lab.
Or:
So hie thee to the lab, the lab,
So hie thee to the lab.
Or:
We'll have a ball in the lab, the lab,
We'll have a ball in the lab.
Or: Any screwball lines you may dream up -- as long as they scan. <gg>
2) Queena's
Alas, still doesn't hack it. Too obscure. And as custodians of the Queen's English, we have to be totally Above Reproach.
I can imagine why the word "penis" suggested itself here. It was not just because it rhymes. Hyenas have a female-dominated society, after all; the females are even bigger and more aggressive than the males. So, I submit, your unconscious mind knew -- even if your conscious mind did not -- that female spotted hyenas have hugely enlarged clitorises, so enlarged, in fact, that to the unpracticed eye they look exactly like penises. (The females even have phony scrotums.) And, as Dave Barry would say, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!
Let's see, what are the alternatives?
obscene as
mean as
Nope, won't do. Nothing can follow the "as", because the next line begins the refrain.
How about:
mean ass
Nope, too obscene.
Okay:
marinas
cantinas
arenas
Tsarinas
concertinas
Or, do a near-rhyme, using "us":
mean us
demean us
between us
convene us
And let's not forget the adjectival ending -ous, since we are talking near-rhymes:
hideous
monstrous
beauteous
righteous
frabjous
Howzabout:
...Who can shread the intestinas
Of those who scoff at the Ps an
Qs of English clean and beauteous...
Just noticed -- the second stanza is in a different meter! It is written in trochaic, not iambic, tetrameter! But that's okay, because it works.
Over to you, Lather...:-)
Joan |
