11.25.08

Faust things first

Posted in Chaucer, Middle English, Shakespeare, assorted weird crap, humor, style at 6:34 am by Bill Brohaugh

I get bedazzled by online gadgets for their industry, their creativity, their fun, and their potential for wisecrackery. Mostly for the first three items but also for the fourth is my interest in ofaust.com (with a nod to one of the commenters at Language Log for the alert). Submit a bit of writing through the site’s interface, and O’Faust reports whose classic writing the text most closely resembles.

Fearing for the mockery such evaluations would send my way, I first tested O’Faust on the “Late for the Sky” blog perpetrated by my friend and fellow radio comedy writer JohnnyB (his song parodies are superb). JohnnyB’s “Come Fly With Me” installment was gauged to be most like Frank Baum, with 24% similarity. His “I Love LA” entry was gauged, with less confidence at 14%, to be most like Edgar Rice Burroughs. (Note to JohnnyB: my evaluation that you exist in your own fantasy world has been independently confirmed.) Oh, and a song parody. JohnnyB’s “Country (First) Rogue”—political parody of John Wasilla’s . . . um, John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads”—gets a nicely complimentary 65% similarity to Oscar Wilde.

Feeling then safe to apply the test to my own writing in this blog, I submitted “Chile is not chilly, chili is not chilly, and never the twain shall meet,” and was given a 23% nod to Edgar Allen Poe. Chills indeed. (As an aside, for the radio show JohnnyB and I wrote for, I composed an ode to an NFL game in which the Baltimore Ravens dominated the Cincinnati Bengals: “Quoth the Ravens, never score”). My “Slurry up and wait” nudged up to 25%, and pointed to Mark Twain. My “Rerenaming names” slipped again to 23% and named—oh, shit—Frank Baum.

Deciding to conduct the ultimate test, I then submitted:

• Chapter 1 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: 93% similarity to Mark Twain. Well done, Mr. Twain, but could you work on your Twain homage 7% harder?
• Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”: 99%! Mr. Poe, you’re ruining the curve.
• Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” translated to Esperanto: 98% similarity to Leonardo da Vinci. Boy, am I feeling a new Dan Brown plot coming on.
• Prologue to Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales (in Middle English): 47% similarity to Shakespeare. 0, now the Shakespeare’s-plays-were-written-by-several-people theorists are dancing in their study carrels!
• Prologue to Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales (in modern English): 23% similarity to . . . Shakespeare! Dan Brown! Why aren’t you accepting my calls?!
• And, finally, some circular testing—I submit the very blog entry you’re reading at this moment: and . . . sonuvabitch! 68% Poe. I was hoping for Dan Brown.
  

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