Haiku Validator | Hacker News Reader

Haiku Validator

haikuvalidator.com

30 pointsmrstone33 comments

A little pedantic, but: this will tell you if a poem is shaped like the common English conception of a haiku, but it won't tell you if this is a haiku, because a haiku is more than just counting syllables.

Aside from the fact that "syllables" is not exactly the unit being counted in haiku, there are also considerations of theme, tone, and a sort of "open-ended-ness" – among other considerations.

This article served as my introduction to the actual complexities of haiku: https://forgottenpoets.substack.com/p/haiku-thursdays-one-pl...

Plus the translation issues, where you can have an absolute sledgehammer of a haiku that would need to be watered down in order fit the "correct" meter in English:

in kyoto / hearing the cry of the cuckoo / i long for kyoto

I just read your tutorial on haiku bulding and wrote one I think applies its framework:

Hacker news haikus

Despite reading this substack

Refregerator

Super fun idea! That syllables package might not be robust enough for this purpose. Even in its documentation's super simple code samples, it estimates the word estimate wrong haha. I think that's somewhat meant to be an admission by the author that it is an estimate.

>>> import syllables

>>> syllables.estimate('estimate')

Doesn't matter in the context of making a fun web app though, cool idea!

A little flask app to write and validate haikus. It's definitely not perfect and makes some mistakes. It uses the syllables python library to estimate how many syllables are in each word.

You can check the override list at https://haikuvalidator.com/overrides and if you have any suggestions feel free to let me know any words that are broken.

This is my first time making a web app. Hoping that someone finds it fun / useful.

close comes up as 2 syllables in the app, should be 1.

Nice and simple, very nice app.

"Sometimes" and "sense" are both wrong. I don't think this library is very good

"wrote" came up as 2 syllables :(

"space" is counted as 2 syllables, should be 1

Seems like a general problem with words ending in 'e'

For this kind of use case it'd be interesting if it could use a dictionary that notes multiple pronunciations. E.g. for "fire" in that list there isn't necessarily a single correct answer https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/eb/qa/fire-one-syllabl...

Potato chip bag

Crunchy, like its fried contents

I ate the chip bag

  a haiku once writ  
  needs validation surely  
  validator's broke  

  Line 1 - 5 / 5  
  a(1) haiku(2) once(1) writ(1)  
  Line 2 - 8 / 7  
  needs(1) validation(4) surely(3)  
  Line 3 - 6 / 5  
  validator's(4) broke(2)

isn't surely 2 sillables? That's how the "Don't call me Shirley" joke works in "Airplane!"

Correct. And broke is also one syllable. Hence "validator's broke".

Very cool! I like the interface. For anyone interested in this and similar ideas, haiku/senryū detection is a feature of this old project of mine: https://versepad.com

I truly do not understand how Ænglish poetry works, do you appreciate written form or vocalizations?

But Validator works on sane languages too:

  mieleeni muistuu
  tässä yhteydessä eräs tapaus
  joka tapahtui

Type your haiku.

Hope that it validates

and smile when it does.

Edit: Little tools like this are nice. It's simple, it works, and it's just one of those little toys that people can use to have simple fun.

Cool idea. Note that sometimes syllables depend on context. So syllable count I think needs to be a range.

Blessed vs “bless-ed” for example

Camera can be said cam-ra or cam-er-a for example.

It's also not limited to words pronounced poetically. Some words where both variants are common, like "wicked", have different numbers of syllables depending on meaning. e.g.

Beads of sweat wicked through the wicked witch's black robes a hot summer day

I just ate bacon

now my fingers are greasy

as i type this

Line 1

5 / 5

i(1) just(1) ate(1) bacon(2)

Line 2

7 / 7

now(1) my(1) fingers(2) are(1) greasy(2)

Line 3

5 / 5

as(1) i(1) type(2) this(1)

I might have greasy fingers but that ain't right

It doesn’t work for actual Japanese haiku.

Authentic haiku

need a season word (kigo).

It's true; look it up.

Authentic haiku

needn't have seventeen morae

in total, either.

See, e.g., Bashō's crow haiku, arguably one of the genre-defining poems [0]. Plus, English is on average terser than Japanese; I've read somewhere that, in English, 3-5-3 syllables pack roughly the same amount of content as the Japanese 5-7-5.

[0]: https://matsuobashohaiku.home.blog/2020/11/21/upon-a-withere...

It does not matter

As long as you have some fun

Refrigerator

It thinks the word "service" is three syllables and "chocolate" is four.

And "describe" is three.

AFAICT metric sillables basically count the vowel sounds so service is two and chocolate is two or thre: "ser-vis" (ˈsɜːvɪs) and "chok-lait" or "cho-ko-lait" (ˈʧɔklət or ˈʧɔkolət).

This is a haiku

I need one to test this app

Love the internet!

Whenever I need

Words for Haiku I reach for

Refrigerator

“Trace” is overestimated and “noel” is underestimated.

I don't know what a

haiku is. can anyone

please explain it?

It is a poem.

Not too many words allowed.

Not too few either.

Completely fails on famous haiku:

柿くへば

鐘が鳴るなり

法隆寺

Reply on news.ycombinator.com