OCT 30, 2021: W-I-P

OCT 29, two gruesome verses for Halloween

Authors' Note: Each year at Hallowe'en, all (living) persons, in addition to honoring tradition, must decide if they are ready to combat the zombie revolution.

 

Check out the whole collection of short poems, called "Gruesome Verse" on our blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE.

OCT 28, Toronto ravines: Todmorden Mills

 

If you are interested in wending your way through an encyclopedic collection of four blogposts stuffed with photo-collages on Toronto ravines, click HERE.

OCT 28, photo-collage, Carolina lowcountry: wildlife revisited #2

  

little blue heron

Atlantic ghost crab

brown pelican, artistic rendering

cormorants and dolphin

roseate spoonbills, Deweese Island

sanderling

willet

yellow-crowned night heron

 

busy sanderlings

OCT 27, wordplay map: American Scramble-towns, 21 ( finale)

Who would ever have guessed? It turns out that an unparalleled word in generating anagrams, i.e. letter scrambles, is P-A-L-I-N-D-R-O-M-E-S. We have taken advantage of that property to create this unique series of wordplay maps of imaginary American (and Canadian) locales, each one completed by its official two-letter state (or provincial) abbreviation. 

 

LINKS to other nonsense in this series: 

Forward to the first Canadian map.

Back up to the first American map.

OCT 25, targeted palindromes, "ZEUS SEES SUEZ" (J)

 

You have reached the "Submitted Palindromes" thread on the blog "Daily Edifying Nonsense", a light literary entity that emanates through the blogosphere daily (almost), i.e. 30 times per month.

  On the 25th of each month you will find a slide-filling group of palindromic phrases submitted to the editors by a panel of 7 palindromists. These folks have all been working on this project since January 2020. The personal profiles for each of these contributors are displayed in panels published here at the start of things, and then, we have asked them to provide (palindromically, of course) their views on one of the iconic items in the classic literature, starting with "A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama", continuing with other well-known phrases, such as "Dennis sinned". Otherwise, their contribution will be grouped in monthly random piles (a phrase that you might recognize as an anagram of the word p-a-l-i-n-d-r-o-m-e-s).

You can access this delightful entertainment right here by entering submitted palindromes in one of the two search bars at the top of this post and scrolling downwards through the wordplay posts that you will discover, OR, just follow the links indicated above. 

Devotees of palindromic wordplay can further explore limericks and other short verses about the classic palindromes (and quite a few recent concoctions) that are randomly scattered on this blog after September 2000, or collected into grouped postings on our more scholarly blog "Edifying Nonsense" -- start HERE.  

OCT 24, binomial phrases: "a hug and a kiss"

Authors' Note: "And too many others to mention ..."

 To review the poetic effusion that we have accumulated about binomial phrases, proceed to our blog "Edifying Nonsense", and review the post  'Grandpa Greg's Grammar: Binomial Expressions'. Click HERE ! 

There is also an entire collection of lyrics to patter songs, somewhat older material, dedicated to various kinds of binomials, that provides more didactic material and an extensive series of examples, and allows you to sing these expressions for your own enjoyment, or for that of others around you. Click HERE !

OCT 23, gruesome verse: two horrific quandaries for Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en is creeping up on us!

Check out the whole collection called "Gruesome Verse" on our blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE.

OCT 22, photo-collage, Toront-oases: City Halls

 

OCT 21, Toronto ravines: Moore Park (Mud Creek) Ravine, photocollages #1-#2

 

If you are interested in wending your way through an encyclopedic collection of four blogposts stuffed with photo-collages on Toronto ravines, click HERE.

OCT 20, singable satire: Hoagy Carmichael sings "STAR-NOSED MOLE"

 PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "Heart and Soul", Frank Loesser and Hoagy Carmichael, 1938.

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr.G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, February 2015.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "STAR-NOSED MOLE" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

Explanatory notes: The star-nosed mole inhabits wet low-lying areas of Canada and the northeastern US. It has been much less well known than its lawn-disturbing cousin, the common Eastern mole. National Geographic recently suggested that it may be the weirdest creature on the planet.

 

STAR-NOSED MOLE

(to the tune of "Heart and Soul")

Star-nosed mole – I fail to grasp your charms -

Fleshy snout, thick tail and flipper arms

Slit eyes,

No need to use a mirror:

You won’t be ogled by peers.

  

Star-nosed mole – a neuroscience find -

Tactile nose, hunts prey though eyes are blind

Feelers (tentacles)

Discern where kisses land,

Just like an eye or a hand.

Star-nosed mole – bolts half its weight each day

Stim-response? – Earth’s quickest, Wiki say,

Nostrils

In midst of quivering nose,

Stay underwater closed.

Strangely evolved for digging, feeding, swimming. 

How do you get to breeding, her-and-himm-ing?

So, you can ‘see'

By integrating touch,

Brain can ‘watch’- snarf yummy worms and such.

Somehow

You find cloacal holes

Of other star-nosed moles. 

You can find a poem about the star-nose mole, with informative notes, on our blogpost 'Mammalian Wildlife'. Click HERE to access it.

 

OCT 19, photo-collage, Carolina lowcountry: wildlife revisited #1

black-crowned night heron

 

mud crab

brown pelican

downy woodpecker

great egret, in marsh

great egret 

OCT 18, oncology verse: benign tumors, a guidebook

Authors' Note: Readers should be aware that the guidebook deals primarily with the lexical aspects of benign tumors, and is therefore of interest primarily to word-nerds and Scrabble-players, rather than pathologists or other health professionals.

  Also, visitors to the online site OEDILF.com might note that close to thirty verses dealing with benign human tumors already grace the 'pages' of that dictionary-in-progress. One-third of these were written by the prolific SheilaB, a retired physician, including acoustic neuroma, angioma, cementoblastoma, chemodectoma, cystoma, dicytoma, hamartoma and lipoma.

 You can view all such verses in a wider context by proceeding to the collection of "ONCOLOGY VERSES" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

OCT 17, palinku (poetic novelty): identity

   In this post, we continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. To help the reader discern the origin of the lyrics, each palindrome (generally occupying one of the three lines of the poem) has been color-coded. 

 You can view all our "palinku" verses if you proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. (Or if you prefer, you can stay on this particular blogsite and look for the offerings for the 17th day of each month -- there are now more than 60 of these.)

OCT 16, Toronto ravines: Sherwood

If you are interested in wending your way through an encyclopedic collection of four blogposts stuffed with photo-collages on Toronto ravines, click HERE.

 

OCT 15, neologism (personal): POTUSA (abuelita latina)

Authors' Note: 

abuela: grandmother in Spanish

abuelita: 'little grandmother', an honored family role in Hispanic-American culture

POTUS: President of the United States, acronymic title that has so far been applied only to males, few of whom have been bilingual

POTUSA: (A = of America), a title, influenced by Spanish wordforms, for a female American president; and if she's a Latina, so much the better

 (Ed. Note:) To make this effort easier, we have now collected these neologistic verses in a collection on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense";  click HERE.

OCT 14, English literature survey course: "The Raven" (Poe's poem)

Authors' Note:   Edgar Allan Poe wrote his best-known poem, "The Raven", in 1845. "The lost Lenore", and “quoth the Raven, ‘nevermore’ ” are famous phrases repeated in the poem. 

   An established classic, the poem will likely remain in the pantheon of poems ad infinitum (evermore).

You can review the entire curriculum for our 'English Classics Survey Course' at "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

 

OCT 13, mammalian wildlife: batty idioms

Authors' Note: BATS, the flying mammals, are found in many idioms, which mostly give them unfavorable press, including:

batty,

old bat,

to have bats in the belfry,

(take off) like a bat out of hell,

as blind as a bat.

You can review the whole collection of illustrated verses about mammals (both domestic and exotic) by checking out the more extensive post on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE !

OCT 12, folio-entry, couples: loons

 

Enjoy an illustrated poetic 'brief saga' featuring the common loon, Gavia immer, by clicking HERE. 

You can view our entire collection from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE. 

OCT 11, garden intruders: gnome adventures

 

Authors' Note: The propensity of garden gnomes to travel, often against their will, is explained here. The author does not condone the trespassing, theft or kidnapping inherent in the services proposed by the narrator to expunge egregious esthetics from one's neighborhood.

Readers, you are fortunate to have available all our poetic comments on creatures (animal and vegetable), devoted to subverting your gardening plans. To view this collection our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense", click HERE!

OCT 10, a brief saga (exemplary exemplification): ablauts and verb past-tenses

 

Authors' Note: Ablaut (AHB-lowt) is a linguistic term, derived from German, for a vowel transition resulting in a change in word meaning. Such changes are the basis of the simple past tense and the past participle in a substantial proportion of irregular English verbs, as exemplified in the second and third stanzas. 

To review the blogpost displaying our entire collection of verses dealing with "Exemplary Exemplification", click HERE. 

 

 For the purpose of this blog, a 'brief saga' is defined as a poem, usually narrative, but occasionally expository, that tell its story in at least 15 lines. Most commonly, the format involves three or more stanzas in limerick form, constituting a single submission to the online humor site 'Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form'. On the OEDILF site, rigorous standards for content and format are involved in a collaborative editing process that may take from several weeks to over a year for completion. 

  Generally, OEDILF has not been enormously welcoming of multi-verse submissions, but Giorgio Coniglio has persisted, and the OEDILF number for each accepted multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. And the good news is that almost all limerick-derived verses can be set to music!

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog, proceed to 'Domestic Turkey'.

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga', back up to ''Cormorant Rookery''.  

 To access all of our 'brief sagas' by the year of their creation, click on your selection below.

2020
2021
2022
2023.

OCT 9, bottom line of medical humor: borborygmi

 Authors' Note: Borborygmi (plural of the Latin borborygmus) , a normal phenomenon, are rumbling noises in the abdomen related to movement of fluid and gas through gastrointestinal viscera (hollow organs).

s in a wider context by proceeding to the collection 'The BOTTOM LINE of MEDICAL HUMOR' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

OCT 8, variant Nantucket limerick: moeurs of Nantucket

 

You can review our entire collection of spoof verses based on the iconic Nantucket limericks on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense' by clicking HERE.

OCT 7, waterfowl: hooded merganser

You can review illustrated verses on such bird-brained topics in a wider context by proceeding to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.