Full Name Howard L. Chace | Name Howard Chace | |
Occupation author, college professor, humorist, organist | ||
An Anguish Languish Lesson 11/3/2008
Howard L. Chace was a professor of Romance languages at Miami University, who wrote poems and stories employing homophonic transformation.
In 1940, he wrote Ladle Rat Rotten Hut to demonstrate that the intonation of spoken English is almost as important to the meaning as the words themselves. It was first published in Gene Sherman's column in the Los Angeles Times in 1953 and in the first issue of Sports Illustrated in 1954.
In Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a single word forms several in the correct version (e.g., "evanescent" becomes "if it isn't"), and sometimes several are combined to make one word ("on-forger-nut" becomes "unfortunate"). Every word can be found in most collegiate dictionaries, with the exception of "icer" (which is in Merriam-Webster's Unabridged).
"Ladle Rat Rotten Hut" was later published in his book Anguish Languish (1956) after it was read on television by Arthur Godfrey. Ogden Nash, after reading the book, mailed Chace his own Anguish Languish version of a popular song. Chace also received letters from his readers containing Anguish Languish adaptations of familiar works.
He was a competent organist and often played during the showing of silent movies.