Oratio Obliqua and Grice

by JLS
for the GC

--- Sorry for the boring title. But the source is not boring. Kramer wrote, in "commentary on 'antisphexishness'", THIS BLOG:

"The inspiration is Ogden Nash: Sphexish is lexish, but sphexy is sexy."

----

Oddly, when in a previous post I commented on another fragment of Kramer's commentary, I wrote, or quoted Kramer as having written, or 'said':

"The inspiration is Ogden Nash: Sphexish is lexish, but sphexy is sexy. ... Anyway, visiting is Something sort of Grandish."

I felt like adding the "..." which was my dull attempt to reconstruct, or maintain, in oratio obliqua (as it were, but this is more like oratio recta, or direct quotation) Kramer having used a DIFFERENT paragraph, which starts with "Anyway, visiting is ...".

Similarly, I find.

Ogden Nash wrote:

Parsley
Is Gharsley

http://www.fun-with-words.com/shortest_poem.html

NOT that "Parley/Is gharsley" was ever claimed to be the shortest poem, but that authorities think that it was Nash who however wrote _it_ -- i.e. the allegedly shortest poem (in the world, if you must) -- to wit:

Fleas
Adam
Had 'em.

--- Note that "Fleas" is the _name_ of the poem, rather than the poem itself. (I follow Grice here. Post-Griceians, rather sillily, maintain that the name of the poem is _PART_ of the poem. I, for one: if I were to set Nash's "Fleas" (alleged) poem into music, I'd start with "Adam" and then proceed to "had'em". I don't think I could be criticised on the grounds of NOT having musicalised "Fleas" (qua title) 'into the bargain', as it were.

And so on.