Editing Nonsense verse (section)

== Variants ==
{{Original research section|date=July 2016}}

In some cases, the humor of nonsense verse relies on the incompatibility of phrases which make [[grammatical]] sense but [[semantic]] nonsense – at least in certain interpretations – as in the traditional:

{{poemquote|
'I see' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter
as he picked up his hammer and saw.}}

Compare {{linktext|amphigory}}.

Other nonsense verse makes use of [[nonsense word]]s—words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. [[Lewis Carroll]] and [[Edward Lear]] both made good use of this type of nonsense in some of their verse. These poems are well formed in terms of grammar and syntax, and each nonsense word is of a clear [[parts of speech|part of speech]]. The first verse of Lewis Carroll's "[[Jabberwocky]]" illustrates this nonsense technique, despite [[Humpty Dumpty]]'s later clear explanation of some of the unclear words within it:

{{poemquote|
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
}}

Other nonsense verse uses muddled or ambiguous grammar as well as invented words, as in [[John Lennon]]'s "The Faulty Bagnose":

{{poemquote|
The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy
Religeorge too thee {{not a typo|worled}}.
Sam fells on the waysock-side
And somforbe on a gurled,
With all her faulty bagnose!
}}

Here, ''awoy'' fills the place of "away" in the expression "far away", but also suggests the exclamation "ahoy", suitable to a voyage. Likewise, ''worled'' and ''gurled'' suggest "world" and "girl" but have the ''-ed'' form of a past-tense verb.  "Somforbe" could possibly be a noun, possibly a slurred verb phrase.  In the sense that it is a slurred verb, it could be the word "stumbled", as in Sam fell onto the drunk side and stumbled on a girl.

However, not all nonsense verse relies on word play.  Some simply illustrate nonsensical situations. For instance, Edward Lear's poem, "The Jumblies" has a comprehensible chorus:

{{poemquote|
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.
}}

However, the significance of the color of the heads and hands is not apparent and the verse appears{{according to whom|date=July 2021}} to be nonsense.

Some nonsense verse simply presents contradictory or impossible scenarios in a matter-of-fact tone, like this example from [[Brian P. Cleary]]'s ''Rainbow Soup: Adventures in Poetry'' (Millbrook Press, 2004):

{{poemquote|
One tall midget reached up high,
Touched the ground above the sky,
Tied his [[Slip-on shoe|loafers]], licked his tongue,
And told about the bee he stung.
He painted, then, an oval square
The color of the bald man's hair,
And in the painting you could hear
What's undetected by the ear.
}}

Likewise, a poem sometimes attributed to [[Christopher Isherwood]] and first found in the anthology ''Poems Past and Present'' (Harold Dew, 1946 edition, J M Dent & Sons, Canada – attributed to "Anon") makes grammatical and semantic sense and yet lies so earnestly and absurdly that it qualifies as complete nonsense:

{{poemquote|
The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have failed to notice is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
}}

More contemporary examples of nonsense verse include the [[Vogon poetry]] from [[Douglas Adams]]'s ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', and the 1972 song "[[Prisencolinensinainciusol]]" by Italian multi-talent [[Adriano Celentano]].