Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

5 responses to “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”

1. alphonsegaston

   March 19, 2012 at 3:26 pm

   Can’t guess what it is. Skunk cabbage? No–a green hellebore?

   Reply
   1. mthew

      March 19, 2012 at 3:30 pm

      Yes, I think it’s some hybrid of a hellebore.

      And I think that will be my new all around curse: “hybrid of a hellebore!”

      Reply
2. mthew

   March 20, 2012 at 6:55 pm

   A version of stinking hellebore, as it happens. (Also a good curse.)

   Reply
3. alphonsegaston

   March 21, 2012 at 3:07 am

   Yes, great curses. I need them in an election year.

   Your remark, until spring awakens them, gives the lie to the fantastic claim that the famous quotation does not make sense, In such a reading, poetry does not make sense. That could be a line from Marianne Moore.
   Poets have written such about the seasonal “sleep” of plants for a long time. Often a metaphor for death and immortality, but not so much after the 19th century. The supposed contradiction between “sleep” and “furiously” is typical of poetry. A lot hinges on the reading of “idea.”

   Here endeth the lecture. 🙂

   Reply
   1. mthew

      March 21, 2012 at 9:09 am

      Agreed. I don’t think Chomsky, as much as I appreciate him, has a poetic bone in his body.

      Reply