As April Fool’s Day is nigh, it seems as good a time as any to deliver unto thee some nonsense. Carolyn Wells’ nonsense anthology collects some of the choicest nonsense of yore for the delectation of savvy readers everywhere.
William Pitt once asked, “Don’t tell me of a man’s being able to talk sense; every one can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?” Good nonsense is a sign of a writer’s creativity. There is a difference, for instance, between “no sense” and “nonsense.” A sentence may jumble words together in an arbitrary order yet is not “nonsensical.” A normally grammatical sentence may include a word with unfamiliar, non-native combinations of letters, and a reader or listener will simply say it makes “no sense.” But it takes a real love of language to write:
It is pilly-po-doddle and aligobung
When the lollypop covers the ground,
Yet the poldiddle perishes punketty-pung
When the heart jimmy-coggles around.
If the soul cannot snoop at the giggle-some cart,
Seeking surcease in gluggety-glug,
It is useless to say to the pulsating heart,
“Panky-doodle ker-chuggetty-chug!”
Here you go, then: introduce yourself to the delights of nonsense.
