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H. Paul Lillebo

Personal blog · blueridgejournal.compoliticsculture

H. Paul Lillebo writes Blue Ridge Journal, a personal blog at blueridgejournal.com about politics and culture. Since 2021, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 3 times. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.

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3mentions?
3HN people?
2021–2025first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 1 in 2021

Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?

Why HN links it

HN readers link H. Paul Lillebo's homophonic poems, which read as one language but sound like another when spoken aloud, such as French verse that sounds like English. Commenters cite them as examples of the trick.

Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.

H. Paul Lillebo's monthly essays cover U.S. politics and government, international affairs, religion, education, science, society.

What Hacker News says?

  1. This reminds me of a similar homophonic rendition, in which the French actually makes some sense ( https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/mots06-etquirit.htm ) - I actually first saw this in the Whole Earth Catalog, of all places. Et qui rit des curés d'Oc? De Meuse raines, houp! de cloques. De quelles loques ce turque coin. Et ne d'ânes ni rennes, Écuries des curés d'Oc.

    Comment linking /poems/mots06-etquirit.htm

    on “The most impressive linguistic feat I’ve ever seen”
  2. Missing a cite to some pioneering work on this in the 30s by A.S.J. Tessimond [1] Cats no less liquid than their shadows Offer no angles to the wind. They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes Less than themselves; will not be pinned [1] https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/asjt-cats.htm

    Comment linking /poems/asjt-cats.htm

    on “Cats are (almost) liquid”
  3. ralferoo · 2025-11-12Recommends
    Another great example is https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/mots01-unpetit.htm Getting a native French speaker to recite these to native English speakers is hilarious! Especially when the French speaker is trying to work out why what they've said is seemingly so funny.

    Comment linking /poems/mots01-unpetit.htm

    on “Welcome, the entire land – "Hello, world" in hieroglyphics (2009)”

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