Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! (1970)

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:17 AM -0400 9/9/03, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>L,
>
>Careful with this scanning stuff. Remember there are some of use who
>have monosyllabic "wire" and "liar." (Surely not my Milwaukee wife
>however!)
>
>dInIs

Liar, liar, pants on fire
Nose is longer than a copper telephone wire

--monosyllabic "liar", "fire" and "wire" doesn't help.  Now if
"copper" and "telephone" are monosyllabic too, you're talking
scansion.  The versions below without "copper" would be fine
(metrically), or the copper-free version we began with.

>
>>At 2:54 PM -0400 9/8/03, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>>>I prefer my wife's, at least for the traditional association of long
>>>>noses and liars (which at least gives me a reading).
>>>
>>>dInIs
>>
>>another possibility via google (which favors the Preston household
>>version, with the slight variants "your nose is longer than a
>>telephone wire", as well as the footloose "nose is longer than a
>>copper telephone wire", which scans worse than Ogden Nash) is the
>>nicely graphic
>>
>>"...hang them up on a telephone wire"
>>"...hanging from a telephone wire"
>>
>>But I agree that the nose-length one is more semantically motivated,
>>besides which I'm not sure why one would drape a burning pair of
>>trousers over the telephone wire, even if copper is a good insulator.
>>Did the prevarication/nose length correlation antedate Pinocchio, I
>>wonder?
>>
>>L
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  The full form (as I am told by mu wife, Milwaukee, childhood memory
>>>>>  from early 50s) is
>>>>>
>>>>>  Liar, liar, pants on fire
>>>>>  Nose as long as a telephone wire.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Us Louisvillians had no such pome.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>The version I remember (I was an Army brat, so I can't localize it, but
>>>>the time would be the mid-'60s) had, as the second line, "Can't get over
>>>>the telephone wire".
>>>>
>>>>Jim Parish
>>>
>>>--
>>>Dennis R. Preston
>>>University Distinguished Professor
>>>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
>>>      Asian & African Languages
>>>Michigan State University
>>>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
>>>e-mail: preston at msu.edu
>>>phone: (517) 432-3099
>
>--
>Dennis R. Preston
>University Distinguished Professor
>Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
>      Asian & African Languages
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
>e-mail: preston at msu.edu
>phone: (517) 432-3099