I once shot a man in Reno as he calculated pi.
I once shot a man in Reno ’cause he was a samurai.
I once shot a man in Reno ’cause he smiled and I’m shy.
I once kissed a girl in Reno but I think I might be bi.
I once shot a man in Reno in a game of Jai-Alai1.
.
1.(Gone awry)
I don’t know why I once shot a man in Reno, perhaps he’ll die.
I once shot a knot theororist in Reno, just to watch him tie.
I once shot a man in Reno, but the levy was dry.
I once shot an old marine-o shouting semper fi.
I’ve never shot a man in Reno, but I guess I’ll try.
I once ate a marischino. I like my shirley temples dry.
I once shot at Billy Pilgrim… after he watched me die.
I once shot a man in Reno, because he was a spy.
I’d like to shoot a man in Reno, let’s give it the old college try.
Lions and tigers in Reno, oh my!
I bought a box of Beano, and you all know why.
Fred Flintstone killed poor Dino, and Wilma made stir fry.
I once shot a man in Reno so I wrote this reply.
I live in Reno, don’t shoot me, oh my!
I once shot a man in Reno ’cause only talked in words that ended with ‘gry.’
The best of these lines are the ones where the meter scans out correctly. The pattern seems to be the following, where ” represents a hard or down beat and – represents the soft or up beat:
–”- –”- –”- –”
i once SAW a man in REno i could TELL was plainly HIGH.
This kind of beat structure is called a Tetrameter because it has four beats per section or “foot” as they say in the metric analysis of poetry (tetra = four). The particular type we’re looking at here is an Anapest (da-da-DUM, much like how the word “anaPEST” is pronounced) with an extra soft/unstressed syllable tacked onto the end. In order to maintain a hard sound this extra syllable is dropped in the last foot. This gives the line a bit of extra oomph as it ends on a good strong downbeat.
One could also view this structure as a tetrameter made by combining a dibrach (two soft syllables: “da-da”) with a trochee (a hard syllable followed by a soft: “DUM-da”) but it breaks apart the line’s structure too much and does little to explain the presence of the solo hard beat at the end.
The original line is slightly different but still maintains the rule of ending on a hard beat:
–”- –”- –”- ”
i once SHOT a man in REno, just to WATCH him DIE.
The most successful variants encorporate this pattern. Therefore I propose these corrections:
“I once shot a man in Reno ’cause he smiled and I am shy.”
“I once shot an old marine-o who was shouting semper fi.”
and from today’s comic:
“I once shot a man in Reno, then I went back home to cry.”
Your devotion to the sciences and method impresses me, Mr. Munroe. I hope you enjoyed this lesson in the method and technique behind the supposedly completely emotional and intuitive world of poetry.
Speaking as a man, who has been shot at, particularly in Reno, PLEASE STOP!
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I shot Warrant in Reno, cuz they weren’t my cherry pie.
I once shot a man in Reno, and I have no alibi.
I’d shoot a man in Reno, but I’m just to tired to try…
I once shot a man in Reno, unless you’re FBI.
I once shot at Janet Reno, just to watch her dance.
Sorry to be a nitpicker, but with the extensive meter analysis above, I feel compelled to poin tout that there’s no “once” in the original lyric:
“When I was just a baby,
My Mama told me, “Son,
Always be a good boy,
Don’t ever play with guns,”
But I shot a man in Reno,
Just to watch him die,
When I hear that whistle blowin’,
I hang my head and cry.”
I visited a hair salon in Reno just to watch them dye.
C. I. Coral:
The meter in the [slightly altered] original — “i once SHOT a man in REno just to WATCH him DIE” — is indeed pretty irregular, and when I repeat it aloud I often end up saying “i once SHOT a man in REno, JUST to WATCH him DIE.” And yet the ones that feel more natural are the ones that don’t quite match either of those — i once SHOT a man in RENO cause he DID not WANT to DIE. The stress on “man” seems kinda ambiguous.
I’m the first to admit I’m not much of a poetry expert. But since the ones that seemed most natural to say weren’t the ones that matched the meter of the original, I just decided to go with a mix, and not be too strict. And saying your corrections out loud, the second (marine-o) sounds good but I’m not sure about the first. “I am” is just too many syllables there. It doesn’t match the good-sounding third one, does it?
Also, these are great
Check out the LJ feed for more:
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/xkcd_rss/46340.html
I shot a man in Reno; he was my wife’s Private Eye
I shot a man in Reno for trimming my bonsai
I shot a man in Reno for stealing my Wi-Fi
thanks for the laughs
I shot a man in Reno, for miscalculating X
*chi
Great comic, as usual
I once shot a man in reno.
What?
What are you looking at?
Stop looking at me that way! It’s true! I did! I killed that sonofabitch dead! He was barely moving!
He was bleeding all over the floor!
No, no, put the phone down. No, it’s okay, no you don’t need to call the cops. No. STOP!
…
I have a gun, okay! Put down the phone! Or I’ll have to start saying “I shot a man in Reno and also one in Bevington” and that DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME RING TO IT!
Randall:
I actually came up with the exact same metric for the first line when I started. My first measure of the subsequent lines were similarly different before I began to notice where the stresses in the words really were. Scansion is tricky because one must not only parcel the feet out correctly, but they must do it in a way that makes sense to the reader. A reader will almost never stress an article — The, of, it, that, and. Especially when there are more words nearby.
I arrived at my interpretation by refraining from the urge to say the line rhythmically and simply saying it in as many different ways and voices as possible. In the majority of the readings it appeared to me that the word “watch” was the more stressed or “endowed” (an acting term) in the line of dialogue. Essentially, it is far more vital to the line than the word “just.” Though I also feel a huge urge to lift up “just” due to the hard consonanat sound of the J.
The coding of the blog response form jumbled up my original symbol measuring. I’ll repost:
The lines after the original follow a kind of drumroll pattern: ba-da-DUM-da, ba-da-DUM-da, ba-da-DUM-da. And the kicker at the end leaves out the last syllable so the line ends on the strong DUM sound. More clearly written in symobls it would be: (symbols as before with a new / meaning a break between the feet)
- – ” – / – - ” – / – - ” – / – - ”
I once SHOT a / man in REno / ’cause he SMILED and / I am SHY
I hope that makes the first correction make more sense. It does go against the tendency for a very modern line like this to require contractions instead of seperate words. This is just the sort of problem that comes up when you try to write in a rhythmic form. Every word itself is also loaded and must be used just so. Perhaps rewriting it a bit more:
I once SHOT a / man in REno / ’cause he SMILED and / I’m too SHY.
But then you start to really alter the original meaning of the statement. Language is a beautiful code and it’s very very complicated. Incidentally, my new favorite variant from the LJ is “I once shot a man in Reno, but the bastard didn’t die.” Well played.
One last thing:
Discovered that the format I’ve described is actually used in other art forms as well. The following is an excerpt from the song “Raymond Chandler Evening” by Robin Hitchcock:
It’s a RAYmond / Chandler EVEning / at the END of / someone’s DAY
And I’m STANDing / in my POCKet / and I’m SLOWly / turning GREY
I reMEMber / what i TOLD you / but i DON’T re / member WHY
And the YELLow / leaves are FALLing / in a SPIral / from the SKY
There’s a BODy / on the RAILings / that i CAN’T i / dentiFY
And I’d LIKE to / reassURE you / but I’m NOT that / kind of GUY
It’s a RAYmond / Chandler EVEning / and the PAVEments / are all WET
And i’m LURKing / in the SHAdows / ’cause it HASn’t / happened. . . YET
This means the form probably has an actual name. If I figure it out I’ll let you know. If anyone else beats me to it, please post it.
“…when I repeat it aloud I often end up saying ‘i once SHOT a man in REno, JUST to WATCH him DIE.’â€
Er, so do you say this a lot and under what circumstances exactly?
I shot a man in
Reno. I can’t rhyme so I
instead did this hai
D’oh!
The “I am” sounds excessive to me (and maybe to xkcd also) because for me, “smiled” is two syllables:
I once SHOT a / man in REno / ’cause he SMI-eld / and-I-am SHY
I hate it when Johnny Cash does that to me. Last night he came over and spilled onions all over my floor, and sung poetically while I cleaned them up. Very annoying.
BTW – great “blag” and comic, just found you and subscribed to both. See you around,
Anita
I once shot a man in Reno, but I did not shoot the deputy.
to Mr. Coral,
Sir, please count the number of syllables in the song.
(but) I shot a man in Reno/just to watch him die
12 or 13 depending.
all your corrections have 15.
what is more, using the actual song, the meter for the words themselves is
(-)-x-x-x-x-x-x
and when sung
–x-x-x-||x-xxx
this was pointed out after your triatribe about our supposedly incorrect meter, but I hereby point it out to you again.
this makes you the worst kind of patronizing pedant. A wrong patronizing pedant who ignores correction.
. spotted.
Why stop with parodies of just one line….how about whole verses?
When I was just a baby, my mama told me, “Son,
Better dead than red, boy, so always own a gun.”
And I shot a spy in Cuba ’cause I’m FBI.
But when I hear that Castro’s dyin’, I hang my head and cry.
At the risk of getting tangled up in the metric wars, I venture my own proposition for how to beat out the lines:
i ONCE / shot a MAN / in RE-NO // JUST to / WATCH him DIE
in long and short sylables: (^=short, –=long)
^ — / ^ ^ — / ^ — – // — ^ / — ^ –
(spoken: da DUM / da da DUM / da DUM DUM // DUM da / DUM da DUM)
iamb / anapest / iamb +1 // trochee / trochee +1
for the correct lyrics, “but I” takes the place of “i ONCE”. Both are iambs and so are interchangable.
CI’s metrical analysis attempts some pretty crazy breaks and invents a metrical unit, mostly because he misses that “once” is stressed. My analysis relies on the simple metrical units of English speech. CI also ignores the effects of caesura (big break) that takes place at the end of each verse. As we can see, the end of each verse has one extra long sylabble added. The extra note signifies the break in the musical phrase. This can also be applied to his other song:
its a RAY / -mond CHAN / -dler EVE-NING // at the END / of SOME / -one’s DAY
all anapests and iambs, with the extra syllable before the first caesura.
I could probably say more, but my point here was to SIMPLIFY our metrical analysis.
invalid xhtml makes johnny cash cry?
To better understand what NumberThree said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regex
I once shot a man in Reno, but that might be a lie.
I once shot a man in Reno (but it only skimmed his thigh).
I once shot a man in Reno for his steak and kidney pie.
I once shot a man in Reno, Reno, shot a man, did I.
I once shot a man in Reno? Really? Wow, I sure was high.
I once fucked this girl in Reno. Wait…you’re saying she’s a guy?
I once killed a man in Reno with my knowledge of Muay Thai.
I once shot a man in reno bla ba di daa die
I met Raphael in Reno, and he stabbed me with his sai.
I once shot a man in Reno because he sang “Bye, Bye, Bye.”
Coincidentally I watched “Walk the Line” the night before this comic which put me in a mood for Johnny Cash. So, I was listening to “I Walk the Line” when I happened to open XKCD and see this new strip. I guess my clairvoyance was a little off or I would’ve been listening to “Folsom Prison Blues” instead.
I once shot a man in Reno, then I hung him out to dry
I once shot some men ’round Reno, some men far and some men nigh
I once looked at a Centrino but it wasn’t worth the buy
Man, this is gonna have me going all year…
I once shot a yam in Costco ’cause it would’ve made gross pie.
I’ll ne’er shoot a man in Limbo…more fun just to watch him cry.
I once shat a man in Reno; don’t trust five cent “Mystery Pie”.
i once shot a man in reno, respect my authoritay
I once shot a man in Reno for overanalysing poerty on the internet.
I don’t ever shoot in Reno because murder makes me sigh.
I’ve never killed in Reno (sorry, that was a lie).
I never drink any tea, no, unless that tea is chai.
(sorry)
I don’t drive my el camino- gas prices are too high
I can’t believe people are having an argument over the number of syllables here. It’s the most rediculous thing I’ve ever seen!
I LOVE XKCD. I think I married the wrong guy.
“I LOVE XKCD. I think I married the wrong guy.”
A contribution to the rhyme? Subtley done says I.