A further celebration of Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year ‘gif’ with a variation of Hamlet‘s famous monologue. I’ve bolded the new words to make it easier to scan for the changes.
To gif, or not to gif–that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of crude animation
Or to take arms against a sea of static
And by opposing end them. To stop, to skip—
No more–and by a frame to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That image is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To stop, to skip—
To skip–perchance to blog: ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of stopping what blogs may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal file,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of extension.
For who would bear the whips and jumps of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely
The pangs of despised love, broadband’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his tumblr make
With a bare bodkin? Who would jpegs bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of connection dropped,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than follow others that we know not of?
Thus file type does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. — Soft you now,
Les Horribles Cernettes! — Nymphs, in thy upload
Be all my sins remembered
Do you have any poetry to celebrate the gif? Or are you still stumped?
Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.
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Image credit: David Tennant as Hamlet.
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