A Treatise on
Dot.Com(edy),
With Purple Prose

By Denny Lien
(B.A., M.A., M.S.L.S., Mn.STF)

The Stumpers-L list <http://www.cuis.edu/~stumpers/> is intended mostly for reference librarians and such to pool their minds and resources on complex reference questions. Somehow, between the questions passed along from clients (some of which by chance will be Rather Silly) and the personalities of the list members (some of whom by design have at least spates of being Very Silly Indeed), the ambience bears very little resemblance to outsiders' views of what would be expected of a thousand or so librarians talking among themselves. The following, for instance --

In July 2000 someone posted to the list the following query:

and received, among others, this reply:

And obviously I couldn't let so sweeping a statement pass. The following was the result:

******************************

Bearing in mind Sir Thomas Browne's dictum that

"What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture,"

I make bold to think that my esteemed fellow lyrics scholar is confusing the issue here by asserting that the crux of Mr. Wooley's narrative is a locus classicus of uncertainty at the same complexity level as the ur-Bikinitext.

Within the context of "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," the inherent ambiguity of the received text and the lack of independent evidence of a substantive nature (see note 1) make a universally-accepted answer impossible. Does the "yellow" refer (a) to the bikini in toto or (b) merely to that bikini subset described as the "polka dot" segment?

The title can be parsed either way; the accompanying lyrics are ambigious. It is likely, though even this is logically not determinable beyond a reasonable doubt, that the "itsy bitsy" refers to the bikini (im)proper rather than to the dots, as this assumption supports the usual interpretation that "she was afraid to come out of the water" because of a conflict between 1950s modesty mores and the self-perceived "itsy-bitsyness" of the specified attire. A minority opinion, however, might hold this as unproven and postulate instead that she finds the itsy bitsyness of the polka dots to be deeply offensive to her fashion sense and that she is, as it were, organizing a "sink-down strike" to protest polka-dot downsizi ng. The jury is out; the case is unproven and unprovable.

But surely this is *not* the case with "One Eyed, One Horned Flying Purple People Eater," where a close analysis of the lyrics will prove far more fruitful. Notice what we learn in the very first verse:

Thus (a) the Eater comes "out of the sky" (suggesting that it can indeed fly, and is indeed flying (see note 2), and (b) thus it does indeed have one horn and one eye. (A minority opinion again might argue that stating that it has *one* horn does not preclude it having more than one, and that the same is true of eyes; but surely this is quibbling --see note 3)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"I don't want to get married anyway --I want to buy a Gestetner."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We can thus accept that the "one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' " part of the description, at least, applies to Entity A (the Eater) rather than to the postulated Entity B (the Eatee, or "People"). There remains the question: do which ent ity does the adjective "purple" pertain?

Logically, in graphing purpleness relations, there are four possibilities:

The song itself clearly contradicts postulate (a), which can be discarded. Postulate (d), while not directly contradicted by anything in the song, is counterindicated by Occam's Razor: why multiple Purple Entities? (Arguably an even greater attack upon Fashion Sense.) We thus need only to distinguish between choices (b) and (c).

In support of (b) --"Eater is Purple" --we note that the narrator of the song identifies the Eater correctly while it is still distance away, "coming out of the sky." Since coloration is one of the major factors used by bird watcher s to classify their finds, it seems likely that it would also be a major factor in classification and identification among freelance monster watchers, or whatever Mr. Wooley is; e. g., he describes it as "purple" because he sees (from a distance ) that it *is* indeed purple. (See note 4). There is also the possibly significant datum that, so far as we know, Purple People do not exist; the significance of said datum is, however, compromised by the notation that, by the same token, so far as we kno w Purple People Eaters do not either.

We also note that Mr. Wooley expressed concern that the Eater might be inclined to eat him (e. g. Mr. Wooley, a presumptively non-Purple prospective meal), and the Eater explicitly denies any such intention, not on the basis of lack of appropriate Wool ey pigmentation, but because of inappropriate Wooley texture:

It seems clear, then, neither Mr. Wooley nor the Eater are defining potential Eatees on the primary basis of coloration. Ergo, this supports postulate (b). Postulate (c), on the other hand, has only one point of evidence in its favor, but that point is admittedly a strong one: the Eater himself claims Purpleitude to be the deciding factor in his gastronomic triage:

Against this seemingly direct testimony, however, it should be noted that there is some reason to believe this a jape: he seems a rather genial sort of monster. The "gruff" voice is presumably a put-on attribute, since if genuine it would see m ill-sorted with the vocal demands of his impromptu audition and Mr. Wooley's apparent approbiation thereof:

Furthermore, it is well-known that in matters of food coloration, rock stars are more likely to concern themselves less with the Purpleitude of meat (an increasing number of them being vegetarians in any case) than with the presence or absence of blue M& Ms in their hotel rooms.

Note 1: It has been asserted that the bikini of the song is based upon that once owned by the daughter of the composer. There's a dissertation topic in that for some lucky graduate student somewhere (probably in California).

Note 2: Technically, the fact that the Eater is "comin' out of the sky" does not necessarily mean that it is flying *as such*; we all remember the cautionary counterexample of the Monty Python sheep who do not so much fly as plummet. However, the subsequent relation that the Eater "came down to earth and lit in a tree" seems to indicate a matter of controlled flight (or, possibly, of uncontrolled pyromaniac tendencies).

Note 3: So nagging a quibble, indeed, that if this were a Talmudic text one might define the argument as "Purple Pilpul."

Note 4: Mr. Wooley's excellent eyesight is further attested to by the fact that, while the Eater in descent is described as "it," Wooley has identified same as "he" by the time the Eater achieves tree-lighting status. This is either somewhat or extremely impressive, depending on how tall the tree was (or how prominent the gender-differentiating Eater characteristic were). Both are unknown, and thus are possibly another dissertation topic. (Or two such topics.)


Data entry by Judy Bemis
Hard copy provided by Geri Sullivan

Data entry by Judy Bemis

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