Grex Writing Conference

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Grex Writing Item 7: Rather prescriptively so ...
Entered by polygon on Fri Sep 20 13:31:15 UTC 1991:

    Do acanthus leaves thrive in their astragal vases?
      Do Ionian volutes have curl?
    Do Greek Doric columns all really lack bases?
      Is a caryatid my kind of girl?

          Yes, it's almost prescriptively so!
          Mark my words, you'll be needing to know.
            They're all part and parcel, these pieces and parts
          It's rather prescriptively so!

    Is a campanile square and a turret more rounded?
      Can a towering fleche be a spire?
    Is a bay just an oriel, very well grounded?
      Does a minaret mean there's no choir?

          Yes, it's almost prescriptively so!
          You can document these, don't be slow!
             It's all quite delightful, twelve building campaigns
          It's rather prescriptively so!

    Did the Mount Vernon ladies preserve for the nation?
      Does the Tax Act require three old walls?
    Are there jobs to be found in hop-barn preservation?
      Did the HCRS stroll Washington's halls?

          Yes, it's almost prescriptively so!
          Since the dinosaurs roamed, high and low
            When fact -- not fiction -- comes to the fore
          It's rather prescriptively so!

8 responses total.

#1 of 8 by polygon on Sat Sep 21 18:01:47 1991:

Okay, I guess I should explain that the above was written as a parody on
the expressions and phrases used all the time by Professor Michael A.
Tomlan, director of the Historic Preservation Planning graduate program at
Cornell.  During my first semester there, my classmates and I had him for
*three* classes, so we heard a lot of "almost prescriptively" and "quite
delightful" and "when the earth was flat and the dinosaurs roamed."

The verses are about some of the curriculum of his courses, the choruses
are full of his expressions.

#2 of 8 by jennie on Sat Sep 21 18:07:34 1991:

Did you ever show it to him?

Griz

#3 of 8 by remmers on Sun Sep 22 12:44:26 1991:

Related question:  Did you pass his courses?  :)

Nice song!

#4 of 8 by polygon on Sun Sep 22 20:15:39 1991:

Copies of the poem/song were distributed at the Christmas party.  At the
same party, and getting a lot more attention, was a cookie made in the
image of this same professor, except that they used green frosting for his
hair.

Yes, I passed his courses.

#5 of 8 by polygon on Sun Sep 22 20:18:13 1991:

The poem was signed "Starbuck E. E. Newelman"

#6 of 8 by keats on Sun Sep 29 23:15:45 1991:

one presumes it is to the tune of gershwin's "it ain't necessarily so."
ain't it?

#7 of 8 by polygon on Mon Sep 30 03:29:00 1991:

It was, but it turned out I did not remember the tune correctly.

#8 of 8 by keats on Mon Sep 30 03:50:30 1991:

(i was having trouble humming it in spots...). nonetheless, a clever 
piece.

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