polygen: Good clean grammatical fun

It took me quite a while to get a handle on polygen, but when I finally did, it was worth it.

You see, polygen proves that there’s no written passage so complex that it can’t be broken down into a series of rules and random choices. Here’s a sample of its genius:

The metaphor reveals something deep of the human life. Illustrating
subject matter to the viewer is not artist primary concern; at the same
time the work represents the ultimate symbol of the cycle of life,
it takes more than just visual or acoustic reception to understand
the works, for they are synaesthetic, appealing simultaneously to the
visual, acoustic and physical perceptions of the viewer and captivating
in their precision. This art immerses viewers into the magic by which
paint transforms itself into things being described and back again;
the artist fills seemingly simple images with light and air to evoke a
sense of purity and serenity.

That’s just fantastic. Logical, coherent writing? Yes and no. It sure sounds good. But it was belched forth from the guts of my heartless Thinkpad.

Not just grammar either. Here’s a list of boy band names.

Boyzone
'V Silk
Pick Them
Sideroad Kids
Boyzone
Packstrict Boyz
Take Ten
'P Ten
Five to Nine
Bring Those
Pull It
The Fives

Perfectly believable to me. Here’s more wonderfulness:

We either should better map the development of Information-retrieval
tecnologies, or have to handle ADSL-based engines. We can better release
freeware systems for configuring the development of ambients. We neither
should release the design of hardware servers, nor need to maximize
virtual services in order to test loosely-coupled engines. We either
could better reintegrate the design of artificial intelligence portals,
or will be able to define peer-to-peer controls for implementing the
development of AI.

I think I’m in love. One day you’ll poke hopefully at the button that brings you to this site, and all you’ll find is the name of a console program, a link to a home page and a few lines like this:

Marvellous. Such a tool has long been awaited since Publisher XP
times. Won't disappoint you. ... The utility everybody was so long
expecting. Rather terrific. Do not miss it. The ultimate solution to
all problems. Completely perfect. Such a product hasn't been seen since
Photoshop 1.8a.

See? I told you blogging was an empty-headed waste of time! 😈

For the record, the best way I could get polygen working was to copy the .grm files out of /usr/share/polygen/ and hammer away at them, like this:

polygen -X 10 genius.grm

Output is to STDOUT, but you have the option to redirect it into a file. Sometimes polygen’s grammar rules include HTML formatting, which is either a blessing or a curse, depending on your motives.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I plan to “escape from home and retire in the sea of northern Mexico along with a dog.” Brilliant. 😈