1255: Garfield for Dogs

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Garfield for Dogs
Garfield for Dogs.png
Made by: Manyhills


Explanation[edit | edit source]

This strip is an adaptation of François Caradec's eight "Poems for Dogs", contained within Veuillez trouver ci-inclus ("please find enclosed"). Each one hides the name of the dog it is addressed to within its text, usually using a phonetically similar pair of words. Take this one, for example, addressed to a dog named Flush (reprinted here):

My mistress never slights me

When taking outdoor tea.

She brings sweet cake

For her sweet sake,

Rough, luscious bones for me.

If you can't find it, the words "rough luscious" contains, in the proper order and right next to each other, the sounds in the name "Flush", and would probably attract his/her attention.

Manyhills' equivalent is an adaptation of an earlier SRoMG strip, with Odie's name hidden in the last line ("rode easily away").

The author writes:[edit | edit source]

There is a Far Side comic about what dogs hear when scolded; the answer is that everything comes across as "blah" save their own name. The writer François Caradec made a similar observation, and this forms the basis of his eight Poems for Dogs, to be found in 1990's Veuillez trouver ci-inclus ("please find enclosed"), entry number 49 in the Bibliothèque Oulipienne. Each of the poems conceals the name of the dog to which it is addressed, hidden from the human eye but entirely detectable to the canine ear when read aloud.

Dogs aren't the only creatures sensitive to the sound of their own names; the cocktail party effect refers to (among other things) the ability of humans to notice their name being mentioned even in a conversation they are not consciously listening to.

Original strip: Square Root of Minus Garfield strip #38, itself based on 1981-07-29.

Transcript[edit | edit source]

{Garfield is hanging by the neck on a tree branch}

Garfield: Mmmph.

{Odie is running to the rescue!}

{Odie running, with Garfield happily sitting on his back, holding Odie's ears}

Caption: A cat of idleness and greed/Caught in a tree did not dismay/He waited for his noble steed/And thanks to its tremendous speed/Rode easily away