I was talking to Aaron last night, and I wanted to use the term \”ur-poem\”, in a rather limited sense. But I wasn't quite sure if that would be precisely what I wanted to say, so I did a quick google search to see if it was common. For \”ur-poem\”, I recieved rather disgusting results.
In the first two pages, there was only a single hit that was what I had intended (at the beginning of the second page). The next proper hit was five pages in. The others were all variants on the soul-reaving \”i luv ur poem!\”
This disgusts me.
The proper usage of the phrase \”ur-poem\” is not some stupid slack-jawed internet-shorthand. The prefix \”ur-\” means \”original\”, and \”prototypical\” [wikipedia]. (Interestingly, the root is German. As in ursprache, protolanguage. I thought it would have something to do with the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur.)
Just so you know.
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