Wiktionary:Easter Competition 2009

Intro
This is to announce this year's Easter competition, which is open to all contributors.


 * The object is to write a poem - one that rhymes.
 * Each rhyming word must be wikified, and the corresponding Wiktionary entry must have a rhyme definition in its pronunciation section that points to a valid rhyme entry listing that word (or, in the case of inflected words, be a soft redirect to such an entry).
 * Poems, which must be your own work, may be of any length or style, but short ones such as limericks or haiku might be easier.
 * Poems in foreign languages should be accompanied by an English translation (in rhyme would be cool).


 * An example (fragment)
 * The boy stood on the burning deck
 * Whence all but he had fled
 * The flame that lit the battle's wreck
 * Shone round him o'er the dead
 * This example would be invalid because it is not my own work.


 * The contest will begin on April 1, allowing for amendment of the rules until that time.
 * It will end at the end of Easter Monday, April 13.
 * This will be followed by two days of voting, during which anyone may vote for the "best" poem. In the event of a tie SB shall decide.
 * The submitter of the winning poem will receive nothing whatsoever.

Entries

 * My dog is dead
 * He lost his head
 * Oh, poor old Fred
 * Your blood was shed

--Jackofclubs 15:06, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Most Holy, All-Seeing,
 * You came into being
 * emitted from Jimmy's keen brain:
 * A Book of All Knowledge!
 *  'S far better than college
 * to teach us all things quite insane.
 * ... Except for the fighting,[infl.]
 * rebellion, inviting;[infl.]
 * "Cease spamming" is heard as refrain.
 * Oh, fie on thee, w|w:!
 * My aim is to snub ya,
 * perhaps with a shot at your drain.
 * Encouraging vandals[infl.]
 * to change up their handles:[infl.]
 * it seems to be 'pedia's stain.
 * To young Wiktionary
 * I turn, and get merry
 * — or even, yea, giddy obtain.
 * Not quite free of trouble,
 * evincing some stubble,
 * nor are all the users humane:
 * too bad! — I'll still edit,
 * read, format — and credit
 * you coworkers, truly, for making a cool, even wonderful tool here that's never a bane.

—msh210 ℠  15:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * WTF am I doing here
 * when I could be down the pub
 * with my mates, tasty grub
 * and the splendid local beer.


 * Why am I with you old farts
 * when I could be playing darts
 * with Mike and John - always cheerful,
 * Dan and Jim - drunk and tearful.


 * The call of the pub is getting stronger.
 * I can't put it off any longer.
 * I'll bring this poem to an end
 * and head off now for the Traveller's Friend.

--SemperBlotto 16:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's my poem. The first column is the Greek, the second is a transliteration, the third is the type of line it is, and the fourth is the translation. I've gone with an Aeolic meter, as that appears to be the most common in Lyric poetry. I'm sure that some grammatical errors and breaches of metrical rules have slipped in somewhere. I'm still rather a novice when it comes to the language. I've asked Flyax to critique it if he gets some time. is not created because it is not attested, but it almost certainly would be the dative singular of. Bear in mind that the actual Ancient Greeks had a much better grasp of the language (and poetry) than I, so this should not reflect on them. Of course, there are some subtleties in "the original" which are not conveyed in the translation. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 05:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

ἀγαπητός ἐμοῦ, λάλει μοι λέγε ἱστορίας ἐμοί φίλει με, φίλη ἐμοῦ ἇπτε με σφιγκτῶς ἇπτε με τῇ ψυχῇ

ἐκλέλοιπας, ἀφυπνίζω τρέχω διά τάς πλατείας, κράζω το ὄνυμα σοῦ οὐκ ὀφέλει, πέφευγας μοι εἶ γαρ γυνή ὀνείρων

ἐστί πᾶς ὁ ἔρως σοῦ χρείαν ἔχω ᾧ μή ποτήριον ἁρμόζει τόν χεῖρα κεραμέως μόνως εἶναι ὀφείλω παραμένει ὀδμή σοῦ

οὐ χρείαν ἔχω σοῦ ὕπαρξις μάτη σοῦ ὁ κόσμος παρουσία σοῦ ἀτελής ὁ ἔρως ἐμοῦ

agapētos emou, lalei moi lege historias emoi philei me, philē emou hapte me sphinktōs hapte me tē psukhē

ekleloipas, aphupnizō trekhō dia tas plateias krazō to onuma sou ouk ophelei, pephugas moi ei gar gunē oneirōn

esti pas ho erōs sou khreian ekhō hō mē potērion harmozei ton kheira kerameōs monōs einai opheilō paramenei odmē sou

ou khreian ekhō sou huparksis matē sou ho kosmos parousia sou atelēs ho erōs emou

hipponactean glyconic telesillean adonean dodrans

glyconic hagesichorean telesillean aristophanean hagesichorean

pherecratean adonean glyconic telesillean pherecratean aristophanean

reizianum reizianum hagesichorean glyconic

Speak to me, my love. Tell me stories. Kiss me, my love. Hold me close, and kindle my soul.

I wake, but you are gone. I run through the streets, crying your name, to no avail, you have fled. For you are the woman of my dreams.

Your love is everything I could ever want, but does not the cup fit the potter's hand? I must continue without you, but your scent lingers.

I do not need you! Your existence is folly. Your presence is a mere ornament. My love for you is meaningless.

-Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 05:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * PS: If anyone wants to read up on what this means or how it works, I found a nice resource at (it's a PDF download).  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Voting
You may vote for one poem by adding a "#" and four tildes under either of. ..

My dog is dead

 * 1) SemperBlotto 21:24, 13 April 2009 (UTC) (example, will not count in the event of a dead heat)

WTF am I doing here

 * 1) --Jackofclubs 10:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC). I think it represents a more spirited emotion, and the reader can clearly hear the poet's neediness. Here the poet is trying to decry his "old fart" friends for hindering him from his real passion, that of self-intoxication. This is a far more realistic and universal theme than the pansily-written Greek one (the theme "love"? What's that? Surely people don't experience love anymore, not since the 60s?, and also, there's far more thought put into this poem - anybody with half a brain can write a rhyming poem in Greek, then transliterate it, then say what type of line it is, then give a translation which still sounds very poetic. "WTF am I doing here" even excels my greatest-ever opus, "My dog is dead" in poignancy and eroticism. --Jackofclubs 10:40, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

ἀγαπητός ἐμοῦ, λάλει μοι

 * 1) Until reading Jackofclubs' comment, I was unaware that anybody with half a brain could write a rhyming poem in Greek, then transliterate it, then say what type of line it was, then give a translation which still sounded very poetic; but now that I've been informed of that, I am compelled to vote for the everyman candidate. (It's the same reason I continue to vote for George W. Bush as a write-in candidate for every election I remember to vote in. Why would I want to re-elect a judge who probably has some snooty Ivy-League law degree?) —Ruakh TALK 15:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, darn, never mind, I guess I'm too late. Sorry, Everyman! —Ruakh TALK 15:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * 'Tis still appreciated. I must admit that I was a little disappointed that no one even read the work I had put so much effort into.  Perhaps George W. Bush felt that way when he wrote his first Ancient Greek poem.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 03:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I read the poëm, but has G. W. Bush ever written poëms in Ancient Greek? All I know about contemporary writers using ancient languages is about Arthur Rimbaud composing marvellous poëms in Latin, but G. W. B. in grc??? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 08:42, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it quite unlikely that W ever wrote in grc. My statement was a continuance of a deep sarcasm.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 15:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Result

 * WTF wins unopposed. Apathy rules once again. SemperBlotto 08:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
I wonder if language specific exceptions might be made. Certain languages, such as Ancient Greek and Latin would be ill served by a rhyming scheme, as the last syllable(s) are nearly always morphological suffixes. I wonder if an Ancient Greek entry (as is my habit) would qualify, even if no grc rhyming infrastructure were set up (as I really have no intention of doing)? Rest assured that I will still be forced to do just as much work as anyone else. I would also be happy willing to investigate typical grc methods of poetry, which were, in my very limited understanding, more based on meter than rhyming. Thanks for your consideration. Also, may I say that I think this to be one of the better holiday competition ideas thus far. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:44, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I was wondering about this myself. For instance all the thousands of regular Italian -are verbs would rhyme in all of the various conjugated forms. Things that I don't know - 1) Do we have any foreign language rhyme entries? 2) Do we have English language rhyme entries for inflected forms (plurals, past tenses etc) (and if not, why not?)? SemperBlotto 12:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks as though we have rhymes categories for at least four languages (but not English :-)). I guess I've not read a lot of foreign language poetry.....or English poetry, for that matter, if I'm on the subject of the shortcomings of my own education.  Thus I don't know what criteria would be most important in the poetry of other languages.  One thing concerning English rhymes is that English is more prone to accent at the front of a word, where Greek tends to put it at the back.  Thus, English words with the same ending syllable, but with stress at the beginning would not rhyme as well as Greek words with the same ending syllable, but emphasis on the end.  Of course, English morphological endings are generally limited to a single syllable, where Greek commonly has endings of three or more.  I wonder if a rhyme is only meaningful if it includes the stressed syllable (or a syllable with at least secondary stress), which would rather eliminate most English morphological suffixes.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 17:51, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * In ancient Hebrew poetry, more often the poem was written in paired lines, with the second line repeating the meaning of the first, but with different words or different imagery. Classical Latin poetry often does rhyme, but not always.  Meter was more important, but rhyming wasn't too difficult when you consider that the rules for pronunciation and stress were rather strict and depended largely on the spelling of the end of a word.  As a result, nouns in the same declension (in the same inflecioin) frequently rhyme, as do verbs in the same conjugation (provided they are in the same tense, person, etc.).  Japanese poetry seldom rhymes; rhyming is not a feature of their traditional literature.  There are some languages where no syllable is overtly stressed, and so rhyming is rather arbitrary.  Without primary stress, the Western concept of rhyme is meaningless.  --EncycloPetey 08:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Do we want to add the requirement, for English, at least, that the Rhymes pages list the words?—msh210 ℠  19:00, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, then I think I will attempt a grc poem using one of the standard poetic prosodies (I'm currently leaning towards a lyric one). Would that be cool?  There's not much I can do as far as creating metric categories, as a grc counterpart to rhymes categories, as the meter appears to be highly dependent on a word's surroundings (further research may lead to an entirely different conclusion, I'm a noob when it comes to grc poetry).  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:26, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes - I thought that I had done. SemperBlotto 20:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if the vote needs a bigger anouncement, as no one seems to have meandered over here. Perhaps a new thread on the BP? -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 09:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Forthcoming Attractions
--Jackofclubs 09:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Christmas (Saturnalia etc) 2009 - No information available - someone else's problem.
 * Easter (Spring etc) 2010 - Short story competition - either one that fits into a tweet, or maybe one using 26 words, one starting with each letter of the alphabet (or south-east European equivalent). So don't say you haven't had time to think about it. SemperBlotto 16:05, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm....I've gotta find a usable syllabary.......perhaps Linar B. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 16:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Or hieroglyphs, or maybe those wedgy things (of course, they would have to be written on a clay tablet). SemperBlotto 16:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Oooohhhh...Egyptian hieroglyphs are supposed to be Unicode encoded by then. That might work.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 16:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * wedgy? Do you mean cuneiform (Akkadian, Hittite, Urartian, Elamite, Ugarite...)? (cuneus-wedge) Bogorm 18:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, why South East Europæan æquivalent? I am from South East Europe, what does this mean? I do not intend to be importunate, but could you possibly write Catholic Easter 2010, since they differ by one week (mine Easter 2009 is still forthcoming) or we could negotiate the end of the competition? Not sure about Yule too, well, in Greece and Bulgaria in coïncides with the Catholic one, but in Russia, Belorussia ... it does not (Januar 7.) and we have active editors from these countries. How could one respect everyone's traditions? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:16, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, the date of these competitions does not `matter`. The fact that the person setting the competition decides on a date that is relevant to them is absolutely fine. If you're volunteering to run the Christmas competition and it would make you happy it can end January 7th. Conrad.Irwin 18:24, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, this is quite a responsibility. Besides, January 7th is not Yuletide in my country. I know this is not a discrimination, but I thought of calculating the average... Never mind. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A suggestion for a long-term competition:
 * 1) User coins a word with a definition which has 0 google hits.
 * 2) User attempts to spread the word (eg. by becoming an influential journalist, or a published author, or an inventor etc.)
 * 3) The first word to pass WT:CFI is the winner.
 * No, please, Jackofclubs, this would jeopardise the linguistic purity of any language (not just English) by infesting it with a hoard of protologisms. I believe there are many other purists here besides me who are suspicious of too innovative and protologistic inventions promulgated by nonchalant and conniving mass medias. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 20:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree - I've never heard such a hypomelangous idea! SemperBlotto 21:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)