A Blooming Cheeky Response

Question

One of my recent puzzles bears a certain resemblance to this one that was posted to meta by Alconja. When this was pointed out to me, I thought that since he asked for suggestions I would post a reply for his album, as any cunning devil would.

Please note that this is meant as a lighthearted tribute to a fine puzzler. The solution contains a misspelling due to a combination of words that was too apt for me to resist. The tick goes to the one who identifies the pattern in the poem.

In dreary prose or sprightly dancing rhyme
I'm trailing worthlessly, outshin'd each time.
My crumpled words I swirl, I lyricize.
"Can't parse!" They scold or chide or criticize.
I try but then the master, unsurpassed,
Arrives. Alconja's in the house - at last!

Well, there it is folks. The greatest piece of content this site will ever produce. Time to pack it all in and shut this baby down. :) — Alconja, Sep 12 '16 at 13:34
I believe you were inspired by The songs of England and Scotland by Cunningham, Peter, 1816-1869. — Matsmath, Sep 12 '16 at 14:17
...and what good is a response without a response to the response? — Alconja, Sep 12 '16 at 16:03

score 20 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 13 '16 at 02:01

20

Based on Gareth's response we find

a flower in each sentence.

a closer look at

the title "cheeky" reveals there are also some references to the human posterior

In dreary prose or sprightly dancing rhyme
I'm trailing worthlessly, outshin'd each time.
My crumpled words I swirl, I lyricize.
"Can't parse!" They scold or chide or criticize.
I try but then the master, unsurpassed,
Arrives. Alconja's in the house - at last!

HIND in line 2 also explains the usage of the apostrophe

Thanks to Gareth for the first part of the solution

edited Sep 13 '16 at 02:01

Ergwun

2,780
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answered Sep 12 '16 at 14:01

Joe Derksen

1,046
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SEAT in the last line. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 14:02
And if it's per-sentence rather than per-line, this explains why I couldn't find a flower on line two. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 14:03
(While still getting an explanation for the apostrophe on that line.) – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 14:03
Ran out of steam on the intro, but there is a bit of wordplay there as well. Congrats! – Hugh Meyers Sep 12 '16 at 14:16
@HughMeyers Album? – Rand al'Thor Sep 12 '16 at 14:17
@randal'thor And devilwood. – Hugh Meyers Sep 12 '16 at 14:18
I thought the "cunning devil" phrase was just odd enough that there was probably something going on there! – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 14:19

Gareth McCaughan · Answer 2 · 2016-09-12T13:46:38.773

8

I suspect there may be more going on than this, but: Each line

other than the second contains the name of a flower

as follows:

In dreary prose or sprightly dancing rhyme
I'm trailing worthlessly, outshin'd each time.
My crumpled words I swirl, I lyricize.
"Can't parse!" They scold or chide or criticize.
I try but then the master, unsurpassed,
Arrives. Alconja's in the house - at last!

The last line

has a misspelling (jasinth for jacinth) for obvious reasons.

But I am fairly clearly missing something

on the second line

which makes me suspect that what I have found might really all be red herrings.

I remark that we also have

anagrams of SWORD in line 3 and SPEAR in line 4 (the former even hinted at by "crumpled") -- and M Oehm notes in comments that there are such things as a SWORD LILY and a SPEAR ORCHID. But I don't see similar anagrammed qualifiers elsewhere yet.

There are also

SPORE in line 1 (though spores are for fungi rather than flowers) and STREAM in line 5 (though no obvious thematic relevance). But lots of words have anagrams so this is likely all coincidence.

edited Sep 12 '16 at 13:46

answered Sep 12 '16 at 13:20

Gareth McCaughan

119,120
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Note the apostrophe in the second line. – Matsmath Sep 12 '16 at 13:25
2

I did note it, and I did think "hmm, that makes it likely there's something interesting going on around there", but I am still failing to see anything. Stupid mental blind spot, I expexct. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:29
1

Sword lilies (gladioles) and spear orchids are names of flowers, so there may well be more to it. – M Oehm Sep 12 '16 at 13:34
Ooooo, good catch. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:36
Considering the title is a Blooming cheeky response, I'd say plants/flowers is probably on the right track. – dcfyj Sep 12 '16 at 13:37
1

Well, yes. But this is meant to be one-upping Alconja's earlier riddle, and Hugh is an extremely ingenious chap, so I strongly suspect there is further subtlety going on here. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:40
Not to be picky here, but why don't we have this puzzle tagged as [anagram]? – Matsmath Sep 12 '16 at 13:43
@Matsmath Because these are not anagrams, the letters are in the correct order, just spread across words. – dcfyj Sep 12 '16 at 13:45
@GarethMcCaughan I think the 2nd line's flower is probably hidden in "outshin'd each time." that missing "e" is very suspicious to me. – dcfyj Sep 12 '16 at 13:46
Yes, that was my first assumption too, but I have failed to find it. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:46
The flower names are in the correct order, but if SWORD and SPEAR are not coincidences then those are anagrams. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:47
There's a very odd anagram in the first line: sprightly (dancing) gives triglyphs. – M Oehm Sep 12 '16 at 13:47
That's cute. Perhaps there are letter-triples in every line with special significance... – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:48
I note that the wordsmith.org anagram service doesn't know TRIGLYPHS. Is there an anagram machine on the web with a nice big dictionary, or do I have to make my own? – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:50
I've used Chambers Word Wizard, which unfortunately produces only single words and short well-known phrases. And I didn't know that triglyphs are architctural features of temples rather than letter triplets. – M Oehm Sep 12 '16 at 13:53
Oh yes, so they are. It looks as if I may have to build my own anagrammatizer, then. – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 13:54
@Matsmath, your remark earlier suggests that you've found a flower name in the second line somewhere around the apostrophe; as you can see, multiple other people haven't. Would you like to share? – Gareth McCaughan Sep 12 '16 at 14:01
On the flower theme, there nearly is lungwort on the second line, except that the u is an i, but that's probably more coincidence than not. – M Oehm Sep 12 '16 at 14:08
@MOehm Indeed. Maybe the poster is an idiot who misremembered the common name of the pulmonaria. Doh!!! – Hugh Meyers Sep 12 '16 at 14:10
Ling (heather) - Calluna Vulgaris - is in the second line. – Tom Sep 12 '16 at 14:11
@HughMeyers: I agree that there are subtler ways to offend, which was by no means my intention. Such things happen when you helplessly clutch at straws. I'll leave this to the botanists, then. – M Oehm Sep 12 '16 at 14:12
@MOehm I had ling heather at one point too. sigh – Hugh Meyers Sep 12 '16 at 14:13
@GarethMcCaughan unfortunately, no, I don't have a clue. Although trailing (arbutus) is in context. I, however, found this one: https://archive.org/stream/songsofenglandsc02cunn/songsofenglandsc02cunn_djvu.txt : *...The roses and lilies combin'd.
And flowers of niaist delicate hue. By thy cheek and dear breasts are outshin'd, ...*
– Matsmath Sep 12 '16 at 14:13

A Blooming Cheeky Response

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