flaccid (FLASS-id or FLAX-id): flabby or limp
A blogsite offering entertaining daily oddities since January 2020. There are now over a thousand unique posts in these three years. Images, both visual and poetic, are drawn from daily life, as well as from verses, photos and computer-graphics on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense".
August 31, 2022
AUG 31, objectionable adjectives: flaccid
flaccid (FLASS-id or FLAX-id): flabby or limp
August 30, 2022
AUG 30, trees: camphor laurel
You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Uprooted Verse: 'Poems about Trees' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".
August 29, 2022
AUG 29, exotic destination: Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
August 28, 2022
AUG 28, planet-saving verse: summer air quality
August 27, 2022
AUG 27, organic brain poetry: frontal meningioma
Authors' Note:
Meningioma is a not-uncommon slowly growing benign tumor within the cranium. Pressure on adjacent portions of normal brain induce neurological symptoms. When the tumor is located in the frontal cortex, neuropsychiatric manifestations may include bizarre thoughts, frequently paranoid, and unrepressed behavior. Fortunately, the tumors, when suspected, are readily diagnosed on neuro-imaging studies, and surgical therapy is often curative.
Brain tumours account for only a small portion of patients suffering such neuropsychiatric symptoms; however, medical practitioners frequently hope that such a correctable cause may be discovered.
August 26, 2022
AUG 26, a brief saga: Mar-a-lago (the dacha)
August 25, 2022
AUG 25, (re)duplication: fuddle-duddle
fuddle-duddle: an infrequently used (re)duplication, voiced dismissively in dealing with opinions that the speaker rejects.
In 1971 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, father of current PM Justin Trudeau, unleashed a minor scandal by using unparliamentary language in the Canadian House of Commons. A portion of the ensuing brouhaha, deftly sidestepped by Trudeau, revolved around whether he had actually spoken or merely mouthed the inappropriate words.
Web discussion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuddle_duddle
Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole HERE can easily get to our other seven short verses dealing with specific reduplications, as well as three fairly lengthy patter-songs about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon.
August 24, 2022
AUG 24, patients and maladies: intermittent claudication
August 23, 2022
AUG 23, Canadiana: 'compassionate use'
Growing marijuana seems to be a major activity on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, centred in the city of Nanaimo (nuh-NAHY-moh). Exemptions from restrictions on the substance are given for certain medical conditions, termed compassionate use; however, the criteria appear loosely applied, and overlapping recreational and medicinal use of the substance underlies the region's laid-back attitude.
It is unlikely that Nanaimo will successfully challenge the dominance in limericks currently held by Nantucket. The island of Nantucket has been the setting for a number of limericks; the most famous clean one deals with a crotchety old man whose daughter rips off his poorly hidden cash.
August 22, 2022
AUG 22, funny bones: olecranon (elbow) fracture
August 21, 2022
AUG 21, classic palindrome: 'dogma: I am God'
You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Limericks About Classic Palindromes' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.
August 20, 2022
AUG 20, Toronto oases (cultural): Harbourfront Centre
August 19, 2022
AUG 19, curtained verse: foul-mouthed Phil (the night heron)
The resultant marked increase in opacity of the pondwater's surface doesn't seem to bother dabbling fowl like ducks, whose omnivorous eating is targeted primarily at vegetable matter. Night herons, on the other hand, eat a diet of various small creatures, aquatic and terrestrial, ambushing them while standing near the edge of the water. I presume that a dense cover of duckweed would complicate attempts by Phil (as well as his colleagues, although he tends to hunt alone) to grab a meal of small fish (fries or minnows), if he was so motivated.
August 18, 2022
AUG 18, Italian loanwords: cicerone
You can review our entire poetic outpouring about Italian loanwords by proceeding to a post on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'; click HERE.
August 17, 2022
AUG 17, waterfowl: habitat restored (Crab Bank)
pelican take-off |
August 16, 2022
AUG 16, toxic vignette: digitalis toxicity
Digoxin, a cardiac glycoside derived initially from the garden plant digitalis (foxglove), has been used to treat chronic congestive heart failure and to control the heart rate in atrial fibrillation. During the author's professional lifetime, there has been a major reduction in the death-rate and in the incidence of hospital admissions for digoxin poisoning, also known as digitoxicity. This improvement is due to more judicious assessment of factors, e.g. decreasing kidney function, that may result in increasing blood levels of the drug, but also to limitation of the drug's use as alternatives have become available.
Review all our poems of toxicologic interest by clicking HERE.
August 15, 2022
AUG 15, American satire: FBIer
We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find 30 more on this topic in 5 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start!
August 14, 2022
AUG 14, STD-poetry: the 'gon-dom' and the condom
August 13, 2022
AUG 13, birdlore: cattle egrets
You can view an encyclopedic collection of illustrated poems on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Poems about BIRDLIFE' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. (Or, if you prefer, you can view the collection on Facebook in Giorgio's photo-albums).
August 12, 2022
AUG 12, ecto-parasites: order of fleas
August 11, 2022
AUG 11, palinku (poetic novelty): reliable transport
(Ed. note:) Verses of this ilk have continued to accumulate. You can view them all at one swoop if you proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.
August 10, 2022
AUG 10, news-post: American satire -- taking the fifth
August 9, 2022
AUG 9, limerick variations: ka-pow! (terminal exclamation!)
August 8, 2022
AUG 8, reptiles: update on anole coloration
During the first week of May, 2022, with spring seriously underway in the Carolina Lowcountry, little lizards were out doing their thing in our yard (I presume that's hunting for insects, looking out for potential mates, and patrolling their territories to keep out intruders).
Harking back to previous reference on this site to anoles, I came across the following illustrated verses:
Events around our yard 'today' (May 3, i.e. taking down an old fence) made it a good day for further observations of green anoles and their remarkable penchant/ability to change colour, even though biologists insist that they are not true chameleons.
'Ollie' the green anole, looking greyish on old post |
'Ollie', posing again, in our backyard, on Ocala anise branch, 2 minutes later |
a different creature, ('Ollie's cousin?) climbing down crepe myrtle, few minutes later, 100 feet away |
You can review photos and illustrated herpetologic verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Verses about Reptiles (don't worry! no snakes)' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".
August 7, 2022
AUG 7, pluralia tantum: 'dependent' -- cooking ingredients
Grandpa Greg asked us to pass on this message: "You can view the entire collection of verses about 'pluralia tantum' by clicking HERE."
August 6, 2022
AUG 6, death and the afterlife: dining in Heaven
August 5, 2022
AUG 5, mythed opportunities: dryads
August 4, 2022
AUG 4, wordplay map: renamed US state capitals (western)
We presume that there are others out there who have found that the names of the US state capital cities are a chore to remember. So, here's a practical application of wordplay with anagrams!
We might eventually do the eastern US states, so stay tuned (but be patient).
August 3, 2022
AUG 3, palinku (poetic novelty): evil
In this post, we continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, this new form is used for a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike its classic Japanese analogue, this concoction does not mandate the precise distribution of the syllables among the three lines, but does stipulate that each word in the poem be included in a palindromic phrase or sentence in English (i.e. one that can be read either forwards or backwards).
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.
(Ed. note:) Verses of this type have continued to accumulate, and there are now more than 50 of them. You can easily view them all if you proceed to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.
(Or, if your prefer, you can view all this material on Facebook in Giorgio's photo-albums.)
August 2, 2022
AUG 2, reprehensible modern history: Franco-German conflicts
Cannes (KAN): French town on the Côte d'Azur, famous for its luxury hotels and villas, and for its international film festival
Worms (VORMZ): German town (sometimes pronounced by anglophones as WUHRMZ) of about the same size as Cannes and Limerick, famed for its production of liebfraumilch
August 1, 2022
AUG 1, English classics survey course: Paradise Lost (Milton's epic poem)
Paradise Lost, the epic poem about the Fall of Man and the Garden of Eden, by 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). is contained in twelve books. Its review by young literature students is aided by student guides such as Cliff's Notes.
You can review the entire curriculum for our 'English Classics Survey Course' at "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.