Assume the inspiration was Emily Wilson's new translation of the Aeneid. I gotta be honest, I'm still not sure how dactylic hexameter is supposed to sound, I've listened to a bunch of videos and haven't figured it out.
“ TRUMP: [interrupting] Ron must mouth word so, upon full turn, word holds form!” I’m confused on how this counts as saying Ron must use a palindromic word in each sentence? or is it just meant to be more evidence the debate was rigged?
That last round is the same as the game Cheddar Gorge from the BBC Radio 4 panel game, "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" which may or may not still be running fifty-one years on from the first broadcast.
This is hilarious and I wish the real debates were this entertaining.
I wonder whether I was the only one to read the debate moderator's word, in my head, in Nicholas Parson's voice - and to now have the Minute Waltz playing in my head...
OK, I wrote a draft forbidden-letter reply for candidate Ron. (Not very challenging to the extent of other forbidden-letter material attributed to Trump in the above debate!) Apology for the potential "culture war in a non-culture-war thread" (which may or may not be a policy on ACX now?).
> I think an urgent problem for America today would be the "woke" people who try to make everything about identity, and particularly minority identity. Children merely trying to learn core language and math get told to think about knowledge and our culture like a form of power or a form of hierarchy that one ought to reject and overthrow. I think they will come out dumber for it in the end. We don't want the people with the duty of teaching our children to inject radical race and gender ideology grounded in conflict. While working in my capacity of chief Florida executive officer, I took the initiative in bringing the fight back to the "woke". I demanded that radical political Critical Race Theory and the like not be taught in public education, and that education be about concrete practical material that each Florida parent ought to be able to agree on. And I got anger directed my way from all over the country for what I did, but I think I know why people got mad: namely that my combative policy HAD A REAL IMPACT in holding back Critical Theory. It HAD AN IMPACT in holding back gender ideology. I am the only candidate with a real record of being able to fight "woke" in the wild: I fought it in Florida and when I am your Chief Executive I will fight it in our whole great nation.
I can't make much sense out of Trump's heroic hexameter lines. Something about Ukraine defeating Russia? And Pluto being Cronus's son? Anyone able to explain?
OK, so my final scores for this round are that Haley is the AI pretending to be human, Christie is the human being honest about its experience, DeSantis is the human pretending to be an AI, and Trump is the AI being honest about being an AI.
You can buy a famous book "A Void", in which, no word in it, contains fifth symbol of all (thirty minus four) symbols that form words. It is by an author from country that Paris is in. This book is hard to talk about in this format that author did it in.
- "rough woods; from" and "uncorrupt" and "smug Popov's" are not dactyls
- "to long" and others are hard to read as spondees
- why did you elide "Pouring" and what's going on with "sturdy Kutuzov" and "But not ours such"
- "Cocytus" usually has its stress on the second syllable, as does Sokolov and I think Kutuzov, I think Kozlov and maybe others have their stress at the end
My favorite example of constrained writing is Mike Keith's rewriting of Poe's "The Raven", which begins:
Poe, E. Near a Raven
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary.
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".
See if you can figure out the constraint before looking it up at http://www.cadaeic.net/naraven.htm. Apologies for not being able to format the line breaks better.
Not directly related, but the contortions the candidates go to remind me of this programming talk (I promise this is at least interesting until they explain the gimmick and this the point of the talk)
This is the kind of thing I always got the impression SNL made their bones on, but never delivered in the Famous Examples people ended up linking me. Well done. Can't wait to watch the Democratic debate next.
Today’s debate constraints were brought to you by Oulipo, Christian Bök, and listeners like the MAGA choads who will vote for Donald Trump no matter what he says! (And also Monsanto, the Koch brothers (including the dead one), and Cuthulu).
As an interesting biographical note, Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, an early ancestor to cognitive-behavioral therapy, actually wrote a couple of his books without the 'to be' verb because he thought it would help people see their problems as potentially transitory. The idea was taken from David Bourland as an addition Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics. This was back in the sixties.
So there's kind of a psychology/rationalist avant la lettre connection.
Mark myself extremely impressed. Methinks that writing rather humorous, thus Scott Alexander should moderate Republican debates, because oneself thinks they would moderate quite splendidly. (SECOND ROUND CONSTRAINT: Cannot utilize words less than four letters)
It was fun (especially the ending), I just wonder if this was inspired by some American political (-discussion) reality, or just a complete joke from the beginning?
This made me laugh harder than anything I've read, seen or heard in weeks.
That was very hilarious!
This is wildly unrealistic. No way Trump actually shows up to a debate.
The way Trump will inevitably win the Republican primary will be a lot less dignified than this.
God this is so funny
The closing statement section had me in stitches.
Are pity votes real? Like pity dates? Maybe DeSantis gets elected due to everyone feeling so bad for him that we elect him to make him feel better
Assume the inspiration was Emily Wilson's new translation of the Aeneid. I gotta be honest, I'm still not sure how dactylic hexameter is supposed to sound, I've listened to a bunch of videos and haven't figured it out.
I hope someone does an audio version of this with AI voices.
“ TRUMP: [interrupting] Ron must mouth word so, upon full turn, word holds form!” I’m confused on how this counts as saying Ron must use a palindromic word in each sentence? or is it just meant to be more evidence the debate was rigged?
Genius.
LOL x1000
My tummy throws out lots of howls upon study of Scott's post just now. Fun to look upon, good work!
Laughing my ass off! Someone forward it to Lorne Michaels for SNL.
Last round was gold
That last round is the same as the game Cheddar Gorge from the BBC Radio 4 panel game, "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" which may or may not still be running fifty-one years on from the first broadcast.
This is hilarious and I wish the real debates were this entertaining.
I’m ded
Didn't Christie and DeSantis fail the one-word rule by saying "motherfucker"?
I'm Trump would be perfectly happy if his Presidency just consisted of him and others saying his name a lot on national TV..
I wonder whether I was the only one to read the debate moderator's word, in my head, in Nicholas Parson's voice - and to now have the Minute Waltz playing in my head...
(Also reminded me a bit of speech restrictions between Pondo tribespeople: https://johnfinnemore.blogspot.com/2009/08/before-you-ask-yes-floyd-is.html )
If Donald was in the debates a lot more people would watch. (still not me though)
OK, I wrote a draft forbidden-letter reply for candidate Ron. (Not very challenging to the extent of other forbidden-letter material attributed to Trump in the above debate!) Apology for the potential "culture war in a non-culture-war thread" (which may or may not be a policy on ACX now?).
> I think an urgent problem for America today would be the "woke" people who try to make everything about identity, and particularly minority identity. Children merely trying to learn core language and math get told to think about knowledge and our culture like a form of power or a form of hierarchy that one ought to reject and overthrow. I think they will come out dumber for it in the end. We don't want the people with the duty of teaching our children to inject radical race and gender ideology grounded in conflict. While working in my capacity of chief Florida executive officer, I took the initiative in bringing the fight back to the "woke". I demanded that radical political Critical Race Theory and the like not be taught in public education, and that education be about concrete practical material that each Florida parent ought to be able to agree on. And I got anger directed my way from all over the country for what I did, but I think I know why people got mad: namely that my combative policy HAD A REAL IMPACT in holding back Critical Theory. It HAD AN IMPACT in holding back gender ideology. I am the only candidate with a real record of being able to fight "woke" in the wild: I fought it in Florida and when I am your Chief Executive I will fight it in our whole great nation.
I can't make much sense out of Trump's heroic hexameter lines. Something about Ukraine defeating Russia? And Pluto being Cronus's son? Anyone able to explain?
OK, so my final scores for this round are that Haley is the AI pretending to be human, Christie is the human being honest about its experience, DeSantis is the human pretending to be an AI, and Trump is the AI being honest about being an AI.
lol
Now that are f****ing funny
I'm not sure what the second state was supposed to be in the fixed long sentence.
You can buy a famous book "A Void", in which, no word in it, contains fifth symbol of all (thirty minus four) symbols that form words. It is by an author from country that Paris is in. This book is hard to talk about in this format that author did it in.
A++++
THAT is the content we come here for. Hooray.
Does your verse scan?
- "rough woods; from" and "uncorrupt" and "smug Popov's" are not dactyls
- "to long" and others are hard to read as spondees
- why did you elide "Pouring" and what's going on with "sturdy Kutuzov" and "But not ours such"
- "Cocytus" usually has its stress on the second syllable, as does Sokolov and I think Kutuzov, I think Kozlov and maybe others have their stress at the end
Laughed out loud several times, amazing!
My favorite example of constrained writing is Mike Keith's rewriting of Poe's "The Raven", which begins:
Poe, E. Near a Raven
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary.
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".
See if you can figure out the constraint before looking it up at http://www.cadaeic.net/naraven.htm. Apologies for not being able to format the line breaks better.
Love the idea of an OuliPOTUS
I prefer the ones with actual hardball questions because those questions were genuinely brilliant.
<Every GOP candidate wakes up in a cold sweat>
"I just had the scariest dream..."
I made a mistake by reading this at work.
TrumpGPT?
This is very funny. I shared it with friends. Do you see whether and through what media your posts are shared?
Not directly related, but the contortions the candidates go to remind me of this programming talk (I promise this is at least interesting until they explain the gimmick and this the point of the talk)
https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf
This is the kind of thing I always got the impression SNL made their bones on, but never delivered in the Famous Examples people ended up linking me. Well done. Can't wait to watch the Democratic debate next.
Very impressive! How long did it take you to write this? The trump heroic hexameter in particular?
Today’s debate constraints were brought to you by Oulipo, Christian Bök, and listeners like the MAGA choads who will vote for Donald Trump no matter what he says! (And also Monsanto, the Koch brothers (including the dead one), and Cuthulu).
Could DeSantis have used "a" or "I" as the palindromic word?
I completely, utterly lost it when Trump began speaking in the heroic hexameter.
As an interesting biographical note, Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, an early ancestor to cognitive-behavioral therapy, actually wrote a couple of his books without the 'to be' verb because he thought it would help people see their problems as potentially transitory. The idea was taken from David Bourland as an addition Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics. This was back in the sixties.
So there's kind of a psychology/rationalist avant la lettre connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
And now, welcome to another edition of "Whose Primary is it Anyways!" A game where the questions are made up but the international conflicts are real.
Mark myself extremely impressed. Methinks that writing rather humorous, thus Scott Alexander should moderate Republican debates, because oneself thinks they would moderate quite splendidly. (SECOND ROUND CONSTRAINT: Cannot utilize words less than four letters)
Hillarious! Especially early on when Trump weirdly sounds like Trump.
Was it a deliberate or accidental irony that DeSantis's anti-woke rant was derailed by the woke version of fairness?
I laughed way harder at this than I expected to. Well done.
Weirdly this made me feel affectionate toward Trump
Hysterical. Once the Trump parts started I could not stop cackling.
I don't know what the heck this is trying to say about any of the candidates, and I don't care.
Wordsmithery in Action! Loved this
hilarious 🤣
where's ramaswamy and scott though?
It was fun (especially the ending), I just wonder if this was inspired by some American political (-discussion) reality, or just a complete joke from the beginning?
Priceless. The first rounds were funny, but the closing statements were priceless!
It occurs to me some here might be interested in my (non-lipogrammatical) write-up of the modern lipogram:
https://stephenfrug.substack.com/p/a-field-guide-to-the-modern-lipogram
I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. There are tears in my eyes! Bravo, sir. Bravo! Somebody please make a deep fake of this.
Tom Friedman could learn a lot from this piece.
I love this idea. Awesome. Let's apply it to the Democrat debates as well.
I'm sure Joe will hold up well under constraints involving heroic hexameter.
Wait... there aren't any debates Demokratikos? But... how can that be?