[John Whitworth]

What are Newtown poems, Roger?

[Roger Slater]

Newtown, Connecticut is where we just had that horrible school massacre.

[John Whitworth]

Thanks, Roger.

[FOsen]

The SI's Obit poems ran today, and Bob Schechter not only scored the coveted Inkin' Memorial but had an impressive total of three poems printed. Chris O'Carroll landed two in the racier online Conversational, and Brendan Beary and I inked one each. I was dismayed, though, to note that the first line of mine had been changed and no longer scans.

And Melissa Balmain shared some of hers with me awhile ago and, imo, she wuz robbed . . .

Anyway, congrats to all, and if the links don't work, perhaps some enterprising soul will post some that do.

Frank

[Roger Slater]

Thanks for noting this, Frank. But you missed one of Brendan's two inks. Brendan also was the third place winner.

[Brian Allgar]

Ahem! Empress though the perpetrator may be, I am asking Chief Soderling to issue an arrest warrant in respect of the following:

... there were simply too many worthy entries than I could present in a single list ...

Probationary Constable Alban Girral, WNP

[Janice D. Soderling]

Alban, consider it issued.

Substantive abuse is one thing, but this--words fail me. As they obviously failed the perpetrator of this crime.

Go get that snollygoster. Ann D. and Jayne O. know what to do.

[Roger Slater]

That error appears in the hastily written blog, the Conversational, but not in the contest results themselves. Still, I'm sure that Pat would be the first to repent of it and to turn herself in, since she spent much of her life as a nitpicking copy editor for the Washingggton Posst during the years when it was spelled correctly.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Let those among you who have never typed a typo, step fortward.


Word Nerds have special treatment for nitpicking copy editors. Welcome to a gratis spa weekend, including a marshmallow massage, red silk kimono, and a magnum of Dom Perignon Veuve Clicquot.

[Brian Allgar]

I hadn't come across the word 'snollygoster', so I looked it up:

snol·ly·gos·ter n. Slang. One, especially a politician, who is guided by personal advantage rather than by consistent, respectable principles.

[Perhaps alteration of snallygaster, a mythical beast said to prey on poultry and children]


This potential derivation gives extra meaning to Macduff's outcry on learning of the death of his family:

"What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop?"

Macbeth, it could be said, was doubly a snallygaster.