[Ads-l] corpulent

[Dan Goncharoff]

In the story, Asimov is trying to memorize the name of the compound, and
realizes its rhythm is the same as that of "The Irish Washerwoman". He is
repeating it to himself out loud as he goes about his day, and at one point
an old Irish woman hears him and says, "Ah, you know it in the original
Gaelic!"

On Sat, Jun 9, 2018, 5:19 PM Mark Mandel <mark.a.mandel at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't think I know the story,* but the song is fun:
>
> *The Chemists' Drinking Song*
>
> http://www-cs.canisius.edu/~salley/SCA/Bardbook/chemist.html (very
> slightly
> edited by yours truly)
>
> Words by : John A. Carroll (inspired by Isaac Asimov)
> Tune of : The Irish Washerwoman
>
> Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
> Sodium citrate, ammonium cyanide,
> Mix 'em together and add some benzene,
> And top off the punch with trichloroethylene.
>
> Got gassed up last night with some furfuryl alcohol,
> Followed it up with a gallon of propanol,
> Tanked up on hydrazine 'til after noon,
> Then spit on the floor and blew up the saloon.
>
> Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
> Powdered aluminum, nitrogen iodide,
> Chlorates, permanganates, nitrates galore,
> Just swallow one drink and you'll never need more.
>
> Whiskey, tequila, and rum are too tame.
> No, the stuff that I drink must explode into flame,
> When I breathe and dissolve all the paint in the room,
> And rattle the walls in a ground-shaking boom.
>
> Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
> Go soak your head in a good strong insecticide,
> Slosh it around and impregnate your brain,
> With dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
>
> (BTW, it's *...aldehyde*, not ...ald*i*hyde.)
>
> * 1963 humorous essay entitled "You, too, can speak Gaelic"
> (https://en. <https://en.pm>wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language
> #Isaac_Asimov_essay)
>
>
>
> Mark Mandel
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 8, 2018, 5:35 PM Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This thread makes me think of Isaac Asimov's story involving
> > paradimethylaminobenzaldihyde.
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 8, 2018, 5:26 PM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > Singing in the corpulent forest
> > >
> > > If you know a kiss of Irish, by using Google Translate you can make the
> > > last line read,
> > >
> > > "Singing in the deep wood"
> > >
> > > Otherwise, you get
> > >
> > > "Play in the eyed wood"
> > >
> > > OTOH, the third line becomes,
> > >
> > > "Greeting the sweet choir of the ditch"
> > >
> > > or
> > >
> > > "Choir penalty hearing the grove"
> > >
> > > which can be reassembled into
> > >
> > > "Greeting the sweet choir of the grove."
> > >
> > > "Were" belongs in the first line, cf. _bha_ from the same proto-IE root
> > as
> > > English _be_.
> > >
> > > Like the Wu-Tang Clan, Celtic languages "ain't nothin' to fuck with."
> > >
> > > It's hard to believe that the English had to forbid their occupying
> > troops
> > > to learn - or should that be, "from learning"? - Irish.
> > >
> > Mark Mandel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org