There’s a spanish “my name is cow” poem translation floating around, but its a word for word translation, without the same rhyme and meter so i.. fixed it
Yo soy vaca
en la noche,
cuando el sol
es ausente
y los hombres
se acuestan-
Yo trasnocho
lamo el pan.
(literally: I am cow/ in the night/ when the sun/ is absent/ and the men/ go to bed/ i stay up late/ i lik the bread)
so id like to tell you something, like, in the context of cryptid sightings
specifically, id like to tell you some things about cattle
they dont look like they move fast, but, in fact, they do. they move very fast, and theyre capable of doing so quietly
if a cow is black and has white spots, or if it is white and has black spots, both the white and black bits come together in the approximate shape of a cow
but in the dark, you cant see the black parts, and the white parts do NOT, form the approximate shape of a cow
what im saying is that i have at certain times been walking in the fields on a night with low visibility and i have, at certain times, seen an indistinct white shape zoom past me, and i am at least 95% sure it was a cow. and that if you see a white shape zoom past you in a field at night, it is also probably at least 95% of a cow
My name is Calfe & Im too young to know yet what do with my Toung!
So till my Mom say “Dont Do That!” Ill stick it out And lik this cat.
My little Calfe, Im proud of yu– yur living like the Big Cows do. Yur doing just what Mom have said– for yu lik cat, and cat
lik bred.
Bad meme execution. 0/5 stars.
These poems are supposed to be imitative of 17th/18th century middle English poetry (pre-dating dictionaries and formalized spelling conventions) not early 2000s chatspeak, not babytalk.
These poems are also supposed to be in iambic diameter, giving them a pleasing songlike rhythm. The above has inconsistent syllabic structure from line to line.
These attributes are clearly illustrated in the prime:
So tired of people on this website and their flagrant disregard for syllabic structure.
No respect for the craft.
1. first of all, how dare you. i would never, N E V E R, put forth a cow poem with inconsistent syllabic structure. these may not be my finest work, but the iambic dimeter is IMPECCABLE. check my scansion again and come back to me. I guess “know what do yet” is not ideal, but it falls within the constraints of the form. i’m genuinely appalled by this. i have SEEN inconsistent scansion in this meme, i do NOT approve of it and i have NOT done it. how dare you. HOW DAR EYOU!!!
Secondly: it is not absurd to suppose that the linguistic constraints of a Cow Poem would depend on the figure to whom Cow speaks. In the original (and perfect) “i lik the bred,” the narrative cow, like a Chaucerian non-characterized narrator, directs her speech to an imagined and unspecific listener; not to “the men,” who are characters within the poem, but to some more general audience. (See the Canterbury Tales prologue for an example of this voice in action.)
Later, poem_for_your_sprog has Cow address contemporaries like “dog.” You will notice that the voice of Cow varies slightly, in speaking to Dog, from her voice in the original “I lik the bred.” WHY, then, can we not extrapolate that Calfe – who is, after all, a narrator of limited capacity, being only a Baby Cow with a Baby Cow’s simplicity – would have its own variant voice? And why, too, would Cow not speak differently to her own Calfe than she does to an animal peer, or to reverent imaginary auditors? These are experiments within an emerging form – flawed experiments, certainly, but not mistakes ipso facto. Again: HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!
my name is Cow, and as yu see, its worth yor tiyme to studye me. but if yu dont like what yu red,
take 2 deep breths
and lik the bred.
I am willing to concede on second reading that the syllabic structure is passable, and in that regard I’ve wrongly impugned the integrity of your work, however I maintain that your Frankenstinian amalgam of fake middle English with fake modern American baby talk is thoroughly unconvincing as either middle English or as modern American baby talk.
It’s an aesthetic failure, IMH(inh)O*
You’ve created the linguistic equivalent of a spork — vitiating two perfectly serviceable tools by attempting to fuse them.
Writing ‘till mothere says / do not do that,’ would have conveyed roughly the same idea without feeling quite so awkwardly anachronistic.
My name is Rave, and I can see you’re bent on pa- tronizing me! ”Anachronistic” frankly seems a misplaced word to use of memes. But since you want to start that fight, let’s step outside and do this right.
Dude: if you want to not get wrecked you’d better get your facts correct.
Like, “Mothere,” friend, is not a word that Geoffrey Chau- cer ever heard.*
So “my name is Cow… i lik the bred” seems to be the Hot New Meme, and I like it. Here’s an odd thing about it, though; a lot of the cutsey animal talk I see on the internet (especially birb-speak) sometimes reminds me of Middle English, but “lik the bred” takes it even further and sounds downright Chaucerian, and it isn’t just the rhyme and cadence. Some of the “lik the bred” pastiches I see around don’t really work because they’re in just plain doggo-fran speak (haven’t decided if Doggo-fran and Birb are the same thing or not), but the ones that really hit all the same notes as the original have something going on with the mangled vowels and spelling that’s not the same as the mangling in Doggo and/or Birb. Maybe some time I’ll gather up some examples and look closely at the vowels and spelling and try and sort out precisely what’s up.
my name is Cow i make yu think of likking bred and tayking drink i studdy buks that i have herd so wen yur gon i rite the werd.
now yu may think wen reeding this “yu typ with hoofs, wy dont yu miss?” i ask yu now be pashent, plees i type with tung i lik the kees
Re: the OP – I don’t think Doggo-fran and Birb-speak are the same at all, but it’s tricky to articulate why (probably because I’m not actually a linguist).
I think Doggo-fran revolves around intentionally switching out syllables in words (or adding them onto mono-syllabic words) – although actually I’m not sure precisely what @runecestershire is referring to here but the other thing that comes to mind is the ‘bork’ meme speak which revolves mostly around the nonsense sentence structure ‘you are doing me a [verb]’. Both cases seem to me to be a lot more specific in usage than Birb-speak.
Birb-speak revolves more around intentionally bad spelling and grammar, often with an overblown sense of urgency to imitate something being typed (and thus spoken) loudly, at high speed and with little accuracy (although there are two slightly different memetic forms of Birb-speak – one originating from the @probirdrights Twitter and the other from the @importantbirds Tumblr and their styles, while similar, are not identical).
But the OP is indeed correct that proper-sounding ‘i lik the bred’ poems have a very specific structure and language to them which is distinct again from the other examples.
I have also noticed this! I thought I was alone in thinking they sounded like middle english!!
A few of the spellings used in the “i lik the bred” poems are almost exactly the same as those in my Chaucer text.
I thought this too…
apparently every nerd on tumblr thought this and for once it took a few days for one of us to write a treatise… are we okay?
ok, see – it took me awhile to come onboard with the lik the bred meme because I assumed it was a a parody of a Chaucerian poem that I hadn’t read and I kept meaning to research it to figure out what poem it was!
I’m pretty sure it’s intentionally a Middle English pastiche isn’t it? Cos it originated in the context of a recreation medieval kitchen.
I love it, I was wondering what the next ‘animal talking in pidgin/misspelled/grammatically odd English’ meme would be.
We’ve had lolcats, doge, birbs and now this. Am I missing any?
This is reposted directly from the poetry listserv I mentioned in my last post. It’s called arspoetica and if you’re interested in more you may sign up here. Note that I am a mere subscriber and have no part in running this list, and also this is a lovely example of internet ourobouros-like actions: the author of the email gathered these poems from Tumblr, sent them to me via email, and now I’m posting them back on Tumblr and giving you a way to access future emails. It’s the circle of life, or something.
Me, fifteen minutes ago: “my name is Cow…” M: Are you going to share the cow poem tonight? Me: Nah. I mean, I’m really tempted to, but, you know, it seems a little silly.
Me, five minutes ago: Screw it, I’m gonna send the cow poem.
This is unlike other Ars Poetica, and I realise not everyone is as endlessly fascinated by the language arts of the Internet as I am, so maybe this is not for you. You’ll be returned to your usual diet on Sunday.
A couple of months ago there was a Reddit thread about health inspection violations, and a user by the name of Chamale told the following story: “My stepdad used to be a baker in an authentic recreation of an 18th century New French fortress. Because they sell bread to the public, the health inspector came by, and she was ripping into my stepdad for violations like the stonework walls, the doorless entranceways, or the lack of a mosquito zapper. He pointed out that they were following the highest standards except for things that would destroy the authenticity of this 18th-century bakery. The health inspector relented and agreed to give him a pass after verifying the food storage area was secure. They went to the shed, which was a doorless building attached to the bakery. As thehealth inspector went in, there happened to be an escaped cow licking all of the loaves. My stepdad could only say, ‘Honestly, this never happens.’ They passed the health inspection.”
In response to this, another Reddit user named Poem_for_your_sprog (whose work is generally worth a look, btw) wrote him a little poem, with vaguely ye olde spellings:
my name is Cow, and wen its nite, or wen the moon is shiyning brite, and all the men haf gon to bed – i stay up late.
i lik the bred.
And the internet did what the internet does, and latched onto this ditty and wrote sequels and variations, often in a call-and-response fashion with a conversation between some other creature & the Cow (and yes, I’m about to share several of them with you). Someone even recorded the poems to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’. And I got really excited because as far as I’m concerned, this is what poetry is all about. When I tell people Irun a poetry newsletter, I often get these strange responses about how they don’t really like poetry and aren’t “a poetry person”, implying that enjoyment of poetry is an exclusive club practised only in the rarified atmosphere of literary circles and the academy. To which I say: fuck that noise. Poetry can and should be accessible and funny and touching and easy to enjoy, making its readers want to respond in kind. It should allow us to celebrate together and share our sorrows and develop our ideas, be they ferocious political critiques or philosophical meditations. You should not let preconceived notions about what who is and is not “a poetry person” dictate whether you can enjoy poetry.
Go out and enjoy reading and writing! Share your verse! Seize the day! Lik the bred!
—–
my name is Dog and wen its tea, i hope they giv sum foode to me – i hope they shair befor its gon – they never do.
i don’t get non.
my name is Cow, and this is tru – my caynine friend, its up to yu. so just be brayve and smart insted – and be like me.
i lik the bred.
—–
my name is Cat, no cares have i be it sun or moone that lytes the sky by night i prowl by day i stretch i salute yu, Cow
yu bold old wretch.
o clevr Cat who roams the barn i promys yu i mean no harm – as yor a friend with stelthy tred i invite yu
to lik sum bred.
—–
i am the Bred with yeast i ryse mine amber crust doth pleas thyn eys
the Cow and Cat whos tongues delite upon my crust both noon and nite
are easy stop’d by dor and slat. perhaps the baker noes not that?
—–
my name is Cow and in the spring when other Beastes are frollicking, upon yor legs i rest my hed and in my dreams
i lik the bred.
end note from me, starstuffandalotofcoffee. Ars Poetica’s author was unable to credit the other verses. I believe the last verse is from the talented and hilarious @sashayed.. I don’t know who wrote the rest and they may be from the original reddit thread, but if you do and you can send me a source, I’ll edit this with credits.
ORIGIN STORY!!!
OMG IT TOTALLY SCANS TO GREENSLEEVES. Life changing.
This is what the internet was born for, honestly.
i lik the meme
If you want sources for a bunch of ‘em, they’re here 🙂 The first line of every stanza links to its original posting.
I’m so sorry to do this, but am I seriously the only one who thought of this when I first read the poem?
Steel Phoenix Studios 
