Hip neurotic Malian pro-lifery

Alas, if only I had some relevant content to go with this, possibly my best post title yet!  Someone get me a job as a headline writer.

Perhaps I can play at justifying the putting up of a post by noting that when I read the following, from J.D. Velleman's essay "The Way of the Wanton":

Of course, the thoughts symptomatic of thirst may include the first-personal thought "I'm thirsty," but that thought is in the first instance an atomic expression of thirst, like smacking one's lips or crying "Water!", rather than a compositionally analyzable attribution of thirst to oneself.

I thought of the following, from Being and Time:

The unexplained presupposition is that the 'meaning' of this sentence is to be taken as: "This Thing—a hammer—has the property of heaviness".  In concernful circumspection there are no such assertions 'at first'.  But such circumspection has of course its sepcific ways of interpreting, and these, as compared with the 'theoretical judgment' just mentioned, may take some such form as 'The hammer is too heavy',  or rather just 'Too heavy!', 'Hand me the other hammer!'

Note, incidentally, how Velleman's punctuational proclivities (preserved by me) demonstrate the superiority of the rule, favored by me, of placing sentential punctuation outside quoted material.  He first puts the comma inside the marks, but then when there's an exclamation point already inside is forced to place the comma outside.  But his reaction does not rise to the level of an understanding of the flaw of the form of punctuation in which he is involved, for he does not go back and alter his previous punctuating.

Something else I'd like to mention is that I've been playing a lot of limerick chess lately (just like ordinary chess, except you have to compose a limerick describing your move, as in "Now comes the clarion call / Retreat, retreat from the brawl / We must fly, we must flee / Queen get back to F3 / If you hope that you'll get back at all"—as you can see the metrical requirements haven't been strictly adhered to) and I'd really like to get into a situation in which I can deploy the couplet "To fall for your feint / Is something I deign't".

Comments

[Jeremy Osner]

limerick chess

Wow...

[ben wolfson]

You're just jealous that you didn't think of it first.

[dave zacuto]

It's really not a limerick without the rhythm.

[ben wolfson]

The rhythm's not so far off.

[ben wolfson]

I really liked this one, though someone will probably say it doesn't count:

I hear the church bells tolling slow
And know that I'll soon be laid low.
At each dolorous stroke
I more rend my cloak
And hear the low slow O-O-O.

NB despite the pessimism manifested in that move I ended up winning most gloriously.

[The Modesto Kid]

Your first, second and fifth lines are missing a syllable each. Is this intentional?

[The Modesto Kid]

(specifically, an unstressed syllable following the final stressed syllable.)

[ben wolfson]

In fitting with the gloomy tone of the poem, the final unstressed syllable has been replaced with an unspoken pause before beginning the next line.

[Danthelawyer]

And you've granted us all a fine opportunity to use the phrase "punctuationally punctilious", which just doesn't happen every day.