Phenology, the ancient art of tracking annual phenomena such as plant blooms and bird migrations, is now a crucial tool in tracking the Earth's warming.Details here. Even with the context of plants blooming set up, and knowing this word (though it was not active vocabulary for me until now, probably), it was still hard not to get the other reading.
And then, 10 minutes later the announcer (Steve Innskeep?) says, "let's put this in the passive tense". Mavens will go wild, I imagine.
8 comments:
Mavens gone wild! There's a franchise for you.
Wild will be gone by Mavens,
Hmm...
OK, I'll cut my regular readers in on the deal when we get Mavens Gone Wild up and running. No, wait, that sounds utterly terrifying. Nevermind. Maybe the passive version is less scary?
Maybe because it's grossly ungrammatical?
Wild have the Mavens gone,
Wild are the Mavens going,
A crimson wind in the dawn
Their wild hair a' blowing...
Wild will the Mavens go
As wild they have ever gone
Out over the fields of woe
With words done wrong, and wan.
From this day forward, let this fine poem stand as a reminder to us all that linguistics and poetry can indeed fit together comfortably.
I'll be setting this to music.
Thanks!
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.
Wow! Will we be able to download the MP3 from the site? BTW, I think that the marketing copy should shorten "mavens" to 'maves': Maves gone wild!!!!
Actually, two or three exclamation marks would probably convey the more tastefully restrained image we're after.
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