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Schüttelreime



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Reviews: 63
Sat Aug 06, 2016 5:21 am
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Werthan says...



There's really no agreed-upon English term for this, so I apologize for the title. Basically, it's a rhyme using spoonerisms. The famous German examples are:

Es klapperten die Klapperschlangen
Bis ihre Klappern schlapper klangen.

Es sprach der Herr von Rubenstein
Mein Hund der ist nicht stubenrein.

And while it's not really an English thing, it's not that hard to do in English, and my search on the Internet for it went better than I expected (I half-expected it would be way hard to do in English, if not impossible, and that's why I haven't seen it: because it doesn't, can't exist).

Listen to his teary wail:
"Oh no! Another weary tale!"

We are Skeptics, hailed and vaunted
Mockers of the veiled and haunted!

Shall not a skiing hatter mourn
her cap, blown off the Matterhorn?

Try to breed a sable lily?
That idea I'd label silly.
But I have tried to fill a stable
With unicorns. They're still a fable.

ICECREAM (gelato, per favore) AND BATHROOM (gabinetto):

You can visit new towns
If you know these two nouns.

The matador, who's getting bored,
Will be, the fans are betting, gored.

The ones that pay attention to meter are the most fun to try to read aloud, but people also try to do the shortest ones possible sometimes, like

Gateaux
To go

This site has links to all the English ones I know of and a lot of German ones as well:

http://emerald.tufts.edu/~bhasselb/shuttlesamp.html

Trying to write them is fun, but currently I'm not very good at it. I did accidentally find a site of people writing them in Hungarian but I don't remotely read Magyar, so if anyone wants to scope out languages I don't speak, feel free to do so.

Whatever I try to write
Will be somewhere from wry to trite.

You said that you're hyper and tired
But now you are a typer and hired

*runs off to try again later*
Und so lang du das nicht hast
Dieses: Stirb und Werde!
Bist du nur ein trüber Gast
Auf der dunklen Erde

(And as long as you don't have
This: Die and become!
You are only a gloomy guest
On the dark Earth)

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  








If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.
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