Cycling double dactyls

From Gene Weingarten, the humor writer for the Washington Post, posted in his online chat today:

Higgledy piggledy

Bikes on the sidewalk are

Fine if you're teaching a

Youngster the ropes.

All other uses are

Limited only to

Nincompoops, jackasses,

Douchebags and dopes.


And a reader's reply:

Higgledy piggledy

Bikes on the sidewalk are

Fine if you're open to

Using your head.

Drivers are reckless

And not very careful;

They take a phone call

And I wind up dead.


To which Weingarten replied: "Sissy. If you are gonna ride on the sidewalk, get a tricycle."

Full chat here: http://live.washingtonpost.com/chato...umor-0831.html

sorry to seem so slow but what are double dactyls and how do they work in this exchange?

Technically these aren't double dactyls, really. He kept the meter and rhyme but threw out the other rules.

A dactyl is a word with three syllables where the first syllable is stressed. A double dactyl had six syllables with the first and fourth syllables stressed (DAH-dah-dah-DAH-dah-dah). A double dactyl poem is made up of two stanzas, four lines each. The first line is always some nonsense words (higgledy piggledy is traditional), the second line is supposed to be a person's name and only their name but obviously if you aren't writing about a person then you throw that rule out. Line six or seven is supposed to be a double dactyl (which is what really knocks these two poems out of double dactyl contention; Weingarten used two dactyls, but not a double dactyl. The reader who responded didn't use any dactyls). Lines four and eight rhyme. The whole poem is supposed to have 44 syllables, each stanza is 6-6-6-4. And the poems are supposed to be a bit humorous.

They're hard to write well since there are so many rules, but once you've written one they sound like the simplest thing in the world. They are a fun challenge if you like that sort of thing.

A *real* double dactyl poem my scout troop put together last year:
Higgledy piggledy
Madame Marie Curie
Won her first Nobel in
1903.

Having accomplished this
Radioactively
She's now aglow for all
eternity.

And this one, from one of my daughter's poetry books, written by John Hollander:
Higgledy piggledy,
Benjamin Harrison,
Twenty-third president
Was, and, as such,

Served between Clevelands and
Save for this trivial
Idiosyncrasy,
Didn't do much.

These are great! Thanks for the laughs. :)