# Double Dactyls, the Higgledy Piggledy Poetry Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 18, 2003, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418 "2003-07-18T16:12:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/41 "2013-08-20T14:02:14Z")
Hinkety Pinkety, Gloria Vanderbilt, Anderson Cooper’s mom, that white-haired freak. Maker of denim jeans, Shaped for the shapely, not Uncallipygian Turners of cheek. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/42 "2013-08-20T14:34:43Z")
An old one of mine: Higgledy piggledy Titus Andronicus Lost his whole family (Quite a large bunch) Then singlehandedly Tracked down his enemies Wrapped them in pastry and Served them for lunch. ---
**Author:** ![Streetsinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Streetsinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Streetsinger)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/43 "2013-08-20T14:43:03Z")
BobArrgh, MonkeyMensch–man, you guys are speedy. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/44 "2013-08-21T08:27:06Z")
I suppose it would be only polite to contribute to my own thread. I’ve posted this one on the boards before, but for anyone who missed it: Flippity Flappity _anas platyrhynchos_ Do things flow like water Off of your back? Don’t try to navigate Echolocational Tested by Mythbusters “Quack, damn you, quack!” Some friends of mine do a monthly challenge of some sort of creative endeavor. A few years ago, it was double dactyls. The results are [here](http://commuter.muppetlabs.com/challenge-200709). ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/45 "2013-08-24T00:39:23Z")
Hope this isn’t too esoteric (not for SDMB!), but I’ll bet **Chronos** will get it: Higgsiny, Bosonny, “We’re made of star-stuff,” said Burbage and Burbage, Fowler and Hoyle. Stellar interiors, Nucleosynthesis, Binding in fusion and Brought to a boil! ---
**Author:** ![fanganga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fanganga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fanganga)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/46 "2013-08-24T13:26:35Z")
Flippity-floppity frontal lobotomy could be just the thing for clearing your head Cut diagonally, trepanationally with excesses of care else you’ll be dead. ---
**Author:** ![fanganga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fanganga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fanganga)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/47 "2013-08-25T13:56:32Z")
Helfia, skelfia West Philadelphia The town in which I was brought up and raised Fought accidentally, Transcontinentally, Fled to Bel Air for the rest of my days. ---
**Author:** ![Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashley_Pomeroy)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/48 "2013-08-25T15:48:21Z")
Mine is in the style of gore-metal band Carcass: \*Slippity-sloppity vomiting faecal tract parasite colony fermented pus Manifestation of malignant purulence psychopathology bloated thrombus\* ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/49 "2013-08-25T16:09:36Z")
> [@Ashley\_Pomeroy](#): > > Mine is in the style of gore-metal band Carcass: > > \*Slippity-sloppity > vomiting faecal tract > parasite colony > fermented pus > > Manifestation of > malignant purulence > psychopathology > bloated thrombus\* Aaand who wants breakfast? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![fanganga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fanganga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fanganga)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/50 "2013-08-26T21:06:34Z")
Topsily-turvily, Gilbert and Sullivan Produced operettas Exceedingly fine Most satiristic’ly, Characteristic’ly, Set farcical doings In metre and rhyme. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/51 "2013-08-27T18:24:44Z")
I’ve been lurking in this neighborhood awhile and I like its tone so I’m jumping in. Higgledy Piggeldy Mandelbrot’s legacy: Infinite worlds shown through iteration. Computers made possible visualization of fractals denying delineation. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/52 "2013-08-29T12:52:01Z")
Cheating and stretching things a bit – including the stress needing to be on the wrong syllable of the six-syllable word. Anyway: Hogwarty, Warthoggy, Joanne K. Rowling-o Coined in multimillions From wizardy stuff; Serendipitously All befell, that the world Loved it – might just as soon Have judged, “what weak guff”. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/53 "2013-08-29T17:34:11Z")
Again, stretching matters a bit – but seen as a crossover with the thread on this sub-forum, “A Discussion about whether Shakespeare is Shakespeare without Dismissiveness”. Without dismissiveness, Willy the Shakey, he Wrote what attributed, Or he did not… Proved source of all of this – Oxford, Liz, Bacon, Chris – Incontrovertibly? None will e’er wot. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/54 "2013-09-02T18:44:44Z")
Selfishly – having a contribution – am a bit afraid that this thread will disappear into the “Great Beyond”, if not re-activated. Herewith, another of mine – explanation, recent apocryphal-and-unlikely-seeming tale published in my, in the UK, local newspaper, about a local World War 1 hero (name, Henry Tandey) who reputedly had Adolf Hitler in his gunsights very late in 1918; but Adolf being wounded and not trying to raise his rifle or defend himself, Henry compassionately refrained from shooting him. In convoluted ways, Henry became, 20-odd years later, aware of his oversight, and suffered bad pangs of conscience re same. Alterny, squalterny, Henricus Tandeyus Spared Adolf Hitler In 1918; Had he done otherwise, What would become of it? Un-pre-foreseeable All would have been. ---
**Author:** ![mary.chaffee\_gmail.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@mary.chaffee\_gmail.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mary.chaffee_gmail.com)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/55 "2014-12-09T17:42:14Z")
Higgeldy Piggeldy Poet John Hollander Spent a long life melding Meter and rhyme Foiling the critics, he Double-dactylically Changed the ridiculous To the sublime. (composed as a condolence letter to our cousins, JH’s daughters Liz and Martha Hollander) – Alex Chaffee Mary Chaffee ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418/56 "2014-12-10T01:04:29Z")
Very nice, Chaffees. Btw, I have found Hollander’s “Rhyme’s Reason” a very effective as well as clever explanation of various poetic forms. My copy did get quite water damaged, so I will keep my eyes open at the Strand for another. The one time I ever used a book search service was for “Jiggery-Pokery”, of which one copy was officially floating about in the New York Public Library system, but which someone seemed to have borrowed permanently. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-dactyls-the-higgledy-piggledy-poetry-thread/189418.md?page=2)