There is - or used to be - a grammatical rule that said "ONLY" always qualifies the word that immediately FOLLOWS it. This rule is much neglected these days, and usually this does not matter, the intended sense being obvious despite the "ONLY" being misplaced. But sometimes . . .
VERSACE.
Only I wear Versace in my dreams.
My dream-companions buy clothes in Primark.
I only wear Versace in my dreams.
I do not shred or eat shirts for a lark.I wear only Versace in my dreams,
except when I run naked through the park.
I wear Versace only in my dreams
perhaps because when dreaming, it is dark.
I wear Versace in only my dreams
but not in yours, or hers. All now should mark
I wear Versace in my only dreams.
Putting the "only" there would mean I'm bark-
-ing! Can I afford Versace? In my dreams!
(I have offered this poem to the site "Imaginary Garden with Toads" Other entries can be seen by following the link)
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(I have offered this poem to the site "Imaginary Garden with Toads" Other entries can be seen by following the link)
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If that's an example of Versace, then dreams is the best place for it. You wouldn't want anyone to see you in it in daylight. It looks like it's been used to de-grease the car engine.
ReplyDeleteSue . . the shirt in the picture is a Versace "special", designed to fit Orang Utans and most horses.
ReplyDeleteMy horse wouldn't want to be seen in a Versace. Not even only in my dreams ;-)
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! I love the poem.
ReplyDeleteOh - while I'm here, you were able to diagnose Ros Browne's Magpie problems. Have you any idea what I'm doing wrong? My last two don't work at all! Please...
I enjoyed this very much, an exercise in grammatical tomfoolery and a great syntactical romp! Sort of Andy Warhol meets Gertrude Stein, where Versace replaces Campbell's Soup, but the intention is the same, making the commercial into an icon and the icon into part of our symbolic imagery.
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