[Ads-l] Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba

Wed Apr 7 01:27:44 UTC 2021

What about "Madam, I'm Adam"? The comma mirrors the apostrophe (sort of).

On Tue, Apr 6, 2021, 9:23 PM Margaret Winters <mewinters at wayne.edu> wrote:

> And then there is the simplicity of Madam I'm Adam with a bit of
> handwaving over an apostrophe.
>
> ----------------------------
> MARGARET E WINTERS
> Former Provost
> Professor Emerita - French and Linguistics
> Wayne State University
> Detroit, MI  48202
>
> mewinters at wayne.edu
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2021 9:08 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba
>
> [EXTERNAL]
>
> Or, avoiding the ampersand, retaining Taylor's archaic spelling, and
> taking advantage of the work by Crick & Watson with which he was unfamiliar,
>
> LEWD DID I LIVE AND DNA-EVIL I DID DWEL
>
> Still arguably not as elegant as
>
> Doc, note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.
>
> —unless we’re insisting that the words themselves as well as the letters
> satisfy palindromicity, which of course would also rule out "A man, a plan,
> a canal—Panama!”, not to mention the ur-palindrome “Madam, I’m Adam”.
>
> LH
>
> > On Apr 6, 2021, at 4:23 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > Classical Journal, 1819, p365 [HathiTrust] gives an earlier version,
> without the &, without the extra L, without the attribution to Taylor (who,
> or a contemporary, arguably, could have used the short spelling dwel):
> >
> > Lewd I did live, evil did I dwel.
> >
> > Stephen Goranson
> > http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> James Eric Lawson <jel at NVENTURE.COM>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2021 2:38 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba
> >
> > The "'water poet' Taylor" was John Taylor, died 1654 according to this
> > account:
> >
> >
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015027615551&view=1up&seq=484&q1=water*20poet__;JQ!!OToaGQ!-u9b9w-iqKxA-E-I76T76YMi6C4LDR_SuQCRAb2P1HtF5ymeoM-rDosrPnaWyElN$
> >
> > J.T.R. is a tougher nut to crack. My efforts bore no immediate fruit.
> >
> > On 4/5/21 10:47 PM, Pete Morris wrote:
> >> It's arguably the most famous palindrome in English. It is
> >> certainly the first one I  ever heard. When my father introduced
> >> me to the concept at a young age, this is the example he used.
> >>
> >> According to wikiquote:  (Section on Napoleon)
> >>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Napoleon_I_of_France*Misattributed__;Iw!!OToaGQ!-u9b9w-iqKxA-E-I76T76YMi6C4LDR_SuQCRAb2P1HtF5ymeoM-rDosrPiRu-yI_$
> >>
> >> <<<         The earliest publication yet located of this famous
> palindrome
> >> is in the "Witty and Whimsical" section of The Saturday Reader, Vol. II,
> >> No. 30 (31 March 1866), p. 64:
> >>
> >>        It is said that Napoleon, when asked by Dr. O'Meara if he really
> >> thought he could have invaded England at the time he  threatened to
> >> do so, replied in the following ingenious anagram [sic]: — "Able was I
> >> ere I saw Elba." The reader will Observe that it reads the same backward
> >> or forward.
> >>>>>
> >>
> >> Here's an earlier citation from July 8 1848, which credits the person
> >> who may have created it, and another  ingenious example.
> >>
> >>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tinyurl.com/fvu29s2d__;!!OToaGQ!-u9b9w-iqKxA-E-I76T76YMi6C4LDR_SuQCRAb2P1HtF5ymeoM-rDosrPr9AjgUD$
> >>
> >> Their friend J.T.R. of Baltimore draws their attention to the following
> >> created by the "Water poet Taylor",which had drawn considerable
> attention.
> >>
> >> "Lewd did I live & evil I did dwell"    [shame about the extra l ]
> >>
> >> J.T.R. responded with two of his own:
> >>
> >> "Snug & raw was I ere I saw war & guns"
> >> "Able was I ere I saw Elba"
> >>
> >> The editors are slightly critical of his use of & instead of 'and', but
> >> find his second effort to be near perfection.
> >>
> >> Perhaps some further study of back issues might reveal the full names
> >> of Taylor and J.T.R.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > --
> > James Eric Lawson
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society -
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> >
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>
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>
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