Nonsense verse is a form of poetry, normally composed for humorous effect, which is intentionally and overtly paradoxical, silly, witty, whimsical or just plain strange. It has a long tradition, particularly in English, being congenial to the absurdist streak in British humour. Some Dadaist writings could also be considered as being nonsense verse. Poetry (from Ancient Greek: (poiéo/poió) = I create) is traditionally a written art form (although there is also an ancient and modern poetry which relies mainly upon oral or pictorial representations) in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... British humour has a reputation for being puzzling to non-British speakers of English. ... Dadaism or Dada is a post-World War I cultural movement in visual art as well as literature (mainly poetry), theatre and graphic design. ...

Nonsense verse in this sense should be distinguished from humorous verse or from verse that is nonsensical but intended as parody of modernist verse, such as the poems by the fictitious Ern Malley. In the latter case, the nonsense is an in-joke or hoax, and there is an assumption that it would be taken as meaningful, and even deep, by some readers (whose taste is thus ridiculed). In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ... This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ... The Ern Malley edition of Angry Penguins Ern Malley, fictional poet, was the central figure in Australias most celebrated literary hoaxes, and has become one of the best-known names in the history of Australian poetry. ... A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ...

As previously said, not all humorous verse is nonsense. For instance a poem like Nonsense is an utterance or written text in what appears to be a human language or other symbolic system, that does not in fact carry any identifiable meaning. ...

Algy met a bear.

The bear met Algy.

The bear was bulgy.

The bulge was Algy.

is humorous but not nonsense. Whereas

The elephant is a bonnie bird.

It flits from bough to bough.

It makes its nest in a rhubarb tree

And whistles like a cow.

is classic nonsense being based on the incompatibility of word pairs such as elephant/flit, rhubarb/tree, whistle/cow which make grammatical sense but semantic nonsense. This article is about grammar from a linguistic perspective. ... In general, semantics (from the Greek semantikos, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ...

The poem ...

One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight.

Back-to-back they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

A deaf policeman heard the noise,

And rushed to save the two dead boys.

A paralyzed donkey walking by,

Kicked the copper in the eye,

Sent him through a rubber wall,

Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

(If you don't believe this lie is true,

Ask the blind man -- he saw it too!)

... makes even more extreme use of word incompatibility by pairing a number of polar opposites such as day/night, paralyzed/walking, dry/drowned, lie/true, in conjunction with lesser incompatibilities.

Another nonsense verse goes like this:

'I see' said the blind man

to his deaf wife

over a disconnected telephone

in 1866.

Yet Another, (by A.A. Milne):

'As I was going up the stair,

I met a man, who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today,

Oh, how I wish he'd go away.

Other nonsense verse makes use of nonsense words -- words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear both made good use of this type of nonsense in some of their verse. In these poems, the grammar and syntax are perfectly well-formed, and each nonsense word has a clear part of speech. The first verse of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky ... In grammar, a part of speech or word class is defined as the role that a word (or sometimes a phrase) plays in a sentence. ... A self-portrait of Lewis Caroll, taken with assistance. ... Jabberwocky is a poem (of nonsense verse) found in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) by Lewis Carroll. ...

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

... illustrates this nonsense technique perfectly, despite Humpty Dumpty's later explanation of some of the unclear words within it. Humpty Dumpty sits on a wall, not having yet fallen. ...

Still other nonsense verse uses muddled or ambiguous grammar as well as invented words, as in John Lennon's "The Faulty Bagnose": John Winston Lennon (later John Ono Lennon) (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980) was best known as a singer, songwriter, poet and guitarist for the British rock band The Beatles. ...

The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy

Religeorge too thee worled.

Sam fells on the waysock-side

And somforbe on a gurled,

With all her faulty bagnose!

Here, awoy fills the place of "away" in the expression "far away", but also suggests the exclamation "ahoy", suitable to a voyage (or pilgriffage?). Likewise, worled and gurled suggest "world" and "girl" but have the -ed form of a past-tense verb. Somforbe resists interpretation -- possibly a noun; possibly a slurred verb phrase.

However not all nonsense verse relies on word play. Some conjures up nonsensical situations, for instance Edward Lear's poem, The Dong with a Luminous Nose has a perfectly comprehensible chorus. Edward Lear, 1812-1888 Eagle Owl, Edward Lear, 1837 Another Edward Lear owl, in his more familiar style Edward Lear (12 May 1812 - 29 January 1888) was an artist, illustrator and writer known for his nonsensical poetry and his limericks, a form which he popularised. ...

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue

And they went to sea in a sieve.

What is the significance of the colour of their heads and hands? Well, none really. It's just mellifluous nonsense.

Likewise Christopher Isherwood's poem ... Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Christopher Isherwood (prior to 1946 Christopher William Bradshaw-Isherwood) (August 26, 1904 – January 4, 1986), Anglo-American novelist, was born in the ancestral seat of his family, Wybersley Hall, High Lane, in the north west of England. ...

The common cormorant or shag

Lays eggs inside a paper bag

The reason you will see no doubt

It is to keep the lightning out

But what these unobservant birds

Have never noticed is that herds

Of wandering bears may come with buns

And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

from 'Poems Past and Present', J.M. Dent and Sons (Canada) Ltd. fourth printing, 1959

... makes grammatical and semantic sense and yet lies so earnestly and absurdly that it qualifies as complete nonsense.

There is a long tradition of nonsense verse in English. The Anglo-Saxon riddles are an early form. For instance ... The Anglo-Saxons refers collectively to the groups of Germanic tribes who achieved dominance in southern Britain from the mid-5th century, forming the basis for the modern English nation. ... A riddle is a puzzle, consisting of text with a question to answer. ...

The creature ate its words -- it seemed to me

strangely weird -- when I heard this wonder:

that it had devoured -- the song of a man.

A thief in the thickness of night -- gloriously mouthed

the source of knowledge -- but the thief was not

the least bit wiser -- for the words in his mouth.

(Answer: probably a bookworm) The poem is nonsense until one figures out the answer.

Many nursery rhymes are nonsense. For instance ... A nursery rhyme is a traditional song or poem taught to young children, originally in the nursery. ...

Hey diddle, diddle,

The cat and the fiddle.

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed to see such fun,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Limericks are probably the best known of nonsense verse, although the form tends to be used for bawdy or straightforward humorous effect nowadays rather than for nonsensical effect. A limerick is a short, often humorous and ribald poem developed to a very specific structure. ...

Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, Mervyn Peake and Spike Milligan. The Martian Poets are considered by some to be in the nonsense tradition. Russian nonsense poets include Daniil Kharms and Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, particularly his work under the pseudonym Kozma Prutkov, and some French exponents are Charles Cros and Robert Desnos. The best-known Dutch Nonsense poet is Cees Buddingh'. Among German writers, Christian Morgenstern and Ringelnatz are the best-known ones, and both still popular. Robert Gernhardt is a contemporary one. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Edward Lear, 1812-1888 Eagle Owl, Edward Lear, 1837 Another Edward Lear owl, in his more familiar style Edward Lear (12 May 1812 - 29 January 1888) was an artist, illustrator and writer known for his nonsensical poetry and his limericks, a form which he popularised. ... A self-portrait of Lewis Caroll, taken with assistance. ... Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet best known for writing pithy, funny, light verse. ... Mervyn Laurence Peake (July 9, 1911 - November 17, 1968) was a British modernist writer, artist, poet and illustrator. ... Terence Alan Spike Milligan, KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was a comedian, novelist, playwright, poet, jazz musician (crooner-style singer, trumpeter and guitarist; he also played the piano and was a dab hand at raspberry blowing) and is best remembered as the creator, principal writer and performing member... Martian poetry. ... Daniil Kharms Daniil Kharms (Russian: ) (30 December 1905/Gregorian calendar: 12 January 1906 - 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era satirist who used a surrealist or absurdist style. ... Aleksey Tolstoy (September 5, 1817 (Julian calendar: August 24) – October 10, 1875 (Julian calendar: September 28) was a Russian poet, novelist and dramatist. ... Kozma Prutkov was a psuedonym of Russian author Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy. ... Charles Cros (October 1, 1842 - August 9, 1888) was a French poet and inventor. ... Robert Desnos (July 4, 1900 - June 8, 1945) was a French surrealist poet. ... Christian Morgenstern (May 6, 1871–March 31, 1914) was a German author. ... Joachim Ringelnatz is the pen name of the German author Hans Bötticher (7 August 1883 - 17 November 1934). ... Robert Gernhardt (December 13, 1937) German writer and painter who was born in Reval, Estonia. ...

Morgenstern's Nasobēm is an imaginary being, though less frightful than the Jabberwocky: Rhinogradentia (also known as snouters or Rhinogrades) is a fictitious mammal order documented by the equally fictitious German naturalist Harald Stümpke. ...

F.W. Bernstein's observation that

Die schärfsten Kritiker der Elche

waren früher selber welche

has become practically a proverb in German. While strictly speaking nonsense (elk have no critics), it nonetheless expresses the truth that often the most strident opponents of an ideology are its former adherents. Binomial name Alces alces (Linnaeus, 1758) Moose range map Alces alces, called the moose in North America and the elk in Europe (see also elk for other animals called elk) is the largest member of the deer family Cervidae, distinguished from other members of Cervidae by the form of the...