* DEC 31, HOGMANAY (New Year's Eve): Auld Lang's sine

reprise from December 31, 2020

DEC 31, a brief saga: Hogmanay (New Year's Eve)

 A HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL !!!

Incidental photo (start of 2023):

midnight scene from our Toronto aerie

DEC 30, creative anachronism: Roget's Roman "Thesaurus"

 

Authors' Note: 

bud: shortened form of the word buddy (friend)

Roman poets Horace and Ovid are discussed in other verses on this site.

Roget's "Thesaurus" was initially published in 1852, although it had been compiled much earlier, in 1805.

Along the same lines, readers are invited to review our small but growing collection of "creative anachronisms" on our blog "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

DEC 29, ecto-parasites: bedbugs

                                     

                                            

             

Authors' Note:  Details of the allegory: The protagonist needed some vacation following a busy time of downsizing and changing residences. A few days prior to taking off on Snowbird flight 203, it became obvious that a domestic infestation of bedbugs, presumably acquired during the household move, had pre-empted his search for a subtropical respite. 

  Watson, the bedbug sniffer-dog (and his contollers) to the rescue!

Watson, the bedbug sniffer-dog

You can review Giorgio's other verses about pesty and occasionally beneficial insects, as  collected in 'Buzzwords: Verses about Insects' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE (and keep following along 'til you get to the section on ecto-parasites).

DEC 28, painterly poetry: Alfred Sisley, en plein air

 

Check out our entire collection of illustrated verses on 'painterly poetry' exhibited on "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE. 

DEC 27, non-sequitur: "The Secret Life of Plants" (+ US news)

 

Authors' Note: "The Secret Life of Plants", 1973, was a controversial piece of 'non-fiction' that recounted controversial experiments that pointed to plant sentience and emotion. The book became the basis for a documentary film, and even inspired a music album by a well-known popular singer/musician in 1979. Considerable criticism arose from its then-trendy pseudoscientific claims based on non-replicable reports. Subsequently, aspects of how plants, including vegetable species, sense and react to environmental changes, have undergone more intense and sober investigation by academic botanists.

Update from this week's news ... 

Readers may want to review the origin of the charges in this case by reviewing our poem "Classified" posted November 3, 2022. 

DEC 26, mammalian wildlife: gerbils

Authors' Note:

Honest Herb(ie), a westponder, concedes that pronouncing the herbal 'H' in Britain and Australia may be the norm there, but he prefers the more common North American way to say it with the 'H' silent, as in 'hour', and 'honest'.  In fact, language detectives may correctly intuit that Herb is a Canadian, as he spells offence with a 'c', rather than the 's' used by Americans.

The Mongolian gerbil, Meriones unguiculatus, a hardy small herbivorous rodent has become a popular pet. Originally a resident of Asia transported for use as a research subject, it was introduced from the US to the UK in 1964; its pronunciation preferences currently remain unrecorded.

Check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_gerbil

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 !

* DEC 25, Holiday season -- every Adventuality

reprise from December 25, 2020

DEC 25, holiday verse: every Adventuality

 

Incidental Photo:

decoration of a gingerbread house

DEC 24: holidays and celebrations: poinsettias

Happy Birthday to Trooper, wherever you are!

Authors' Note:  Poinsettia is now the common name by which this seasonal plant is known around the world.

  Joel Poinsett, South Carolinian physician and amateur botanist, served as the first US ambassador (a position designated as minister) to Mexico. In the 1820s, he sent home to his greenhouses samples of Euphorbia pulcherrima (member of the spurge family), locally known as flor de nochebuena (Christmas Eve), linked to the Hispanic nativity celebration. 

  Distribution of the poinsettia in the US was enhanced by development of cultivars with a more lush profusion of the colored bracts, and recently, by variants in other appealing colors. Today, a single nursery in Texas accounts for 70% of American sales, and half of all global sales of this decorative seasonal specialty.

  Incidentally, although the plant is assumed by many to be toxic, that possibility appears based on an incorrect original report, unsupported by other evidence.

 
rainy-day visit to the
Allan Gardens Conservatory

DEC 23, objectionable adjectives: fulsome

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to P.E.H. !!!!!!!

 

Authors' Note: Pretentiousness may be at work when the word fulsome is (ab)used by a writer or speaker who feels that 'full' is not sufficiently impressive.

You can review our editorially selected doggerel (eight verses) relating to 'Objectionable Adjectives' by clicking HERE.

DEC 22, higher connections: great chain of being

Authors' Note: Originally conceived by Plato and Aristotle as a construct to explain the universe, the Great Chain of Being, known in Latin as scala naturae, organized all beings and matter in a hierarchy, descending from heavenly powers through humans, animals, plants and minerals. 

   In medieval times, the concept was expanded as a rationale for the Divine Right of Kings, and to deny unapproved social mobility.  

 

Our collection of 'Non-Sequiturs' on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense", contains an admittedly bizarre assortment of nonsensical odds-and-ends, that don't quite fit into other topic-based offerings. But should you want to review the entire collection, click HERE.

Incidental Photo:

the holiday season is upon us ...

Our collection of 'Non-Sequiturs' on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense", contains an admittedly bizarre assortment of nonsensical odds-and-ends, that don't quite fit into other topic-based offerings. But should you want to review the entire collection, click HERE.

DEC 21, defining opinion: hollow

 Our blogpost "Defining Opinion" on the topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense" shows a selection of similar verses submitted to OEDILF (the online Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form). You can see all of these on one visit by clicking HERE.

DEC 20, curtained verse: florid

 EDITORS' WARNING: You must be at least 12 years of age to read this post!

 Authors' Note: 

STD: initialism for 'sexually transmitted disease', a problem for which one might consult an STD-clinic or an STD-doc

Although it's principal meanings revolve around the Latin term for flowery or flourishing, florid has come to imply, in the medical context, "referring to a disease or to a symptom in its fully developed form", or perhaps "fragrantly, flagrantly florid".

 You can review other mildly scurrilous illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Curtained verse: Faintly Obscene (Selected) Limericks' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

DEC 19, death and the afterlife: where bad Jews go

 

 You can review more poems about 'Death and the Afterlife' in context ('death and the afterlife') on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE!

DEC 18, news-post: FIFA (soccer) World Cup 2022

 FIFA WORLD CUP 2022:

Final at Qatar venue ends in 3-3- tie. 

Thrilling tie-breaker, Argentina, Messi: What more can you say ?

DEC 17, waterfowl: flightless seabirds

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

DEC 16, patients and their maladies: Graves' disease

 

Authors' Note:  Graves' disease (often shortened by medical types to the ominous-sounding Graves' ), described by Robert Graves in 1835, is a common auto-immune disease that attacks the internal controls in the thyroid gland, and results in the overproduction of thyroid hormones. Significant symptoms result from hyperthyroidism, the hypermetabolic state that is produced.

Among several effective treatments, antithyroid drugs, taken over months or years, block production of these hormones, and often result in resumption of the euthyroid (normal) state.       

You can view these verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Nurse-Verse: Patients and their Maladies' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

DEC 15, reptiles: herpetophobes

Authors' Note: 

ophidiophobia: an extrem or incapacitating fear of snakes

herpetophobia: a similar anxiety disorder extending to all reptiles

The reptilian suborder Serpentes was previously known as Ophidia, a term derived from ophis, Greek for 'snake'. 

You can review photos and illustrated herpetologic verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Verses about Reptiles (don't worry! no snake-photos!)' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

DEC 14, classic palindrome: go hang a salami ...

Authors' Note: Hanging a salami is an easily accomplished, but important step in the process of dry curing this meat product.

'Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog' is a frequently cited palindrome of relatively recent origin. It has been variously attributed to Jon Agee, a cartoonist and children's writer, and Baby Gramps, a musician and wordplay guru. A lesser known variant of this phrase, possibly primally inspirational, is 'Yo, bang a salami. I'm a lasagna boy.'

The second palindrome cited in this verse is of limited longevity and suboptimal quality, as admitted by our protagonist, little Bobby; it is a brief variant of a classic phrase of unknown origin, usually cited as 'God, a red nugget: a fat egg under a dog.'

Web-resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Gramps

https://jonagee.com/ 

You can review a collection of such illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Limericks About Classic Palindromes' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

DEC 13: (re)duplication: harum-scarum

Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole HERE can easily get to a collection of more than a dozen other short verses in which we have dealt with specific reduplications, as well as three fairly lengthy patter-songs about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon. 

DEC 12, planet-saving verse: drought

Author's Note: Pretty much a true story. 

You can help save the planet by viewing all our verses in this series at "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

DEC 11, dental feelings (sentimental verse): gnashing, bruxism

  You can review the collection of illustrated verses on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Dental Feelings' on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'.

DEC 10, palinku (poetic novety): diapers

 

(Ed. note:) Verses of this ilk have continued to proliferate, and there are now more than 50. You can view them all at one swoop if you proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

links for any date: scroll over to the calendar-based listings of 'Past Posts' in the righthand column on this page, choose your year and then month of interest, and then select (by clicking) the post of your choice.

DEC 9, inspired by Ogden Nash: ultimate tribute

 

DEC 8, doctors and their practices: Doctors Without Borders

This verse is dedicated to Dr. M. G., an Irish-Canadian emergency physician, now serving as a hospital administrator in Yemen.

Authors' Note:    (mayd-SEHN sahn frohn-TYAYR)

 A small group of French doctors and journalists, in the wake of the horrific Biafran famine in 1971, founded Médecins Sans Frontières (occasionally for English speakers translated as Doctors Without Borders). Designed to deal with humanitarian crises in the developing world in regions beseiged by overt war, armed internal conflicts, epidemics and natural disasters, the charity has repeatedly distinguished itself, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. It currently (2022) operates in over seventy countries worldwide.

You can view these informative verses in a wider context by proceeding to the collection 'DOCTORS and their PRACTICES' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!

DEC 7, urban concerns: break of day

 

building east of downtown,

sunset briefly captured

(8:30 p.m., May)

Authors' Note: For more peculiar view of the city, check out this later poetic offering.

Our collection of illustrated poems about "Urban Concerns" on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense", contains a number of intriguing verses that you can access by clicking HERE.

DEC 6, bar-fauna: Hamlet at the pub

If you liked this offering, you might want to refer to our entire collection of verses about human and animal denizens of bars, pubs and other watering-holes. Click HERE.

links for any date: scroll over to the calendar-based listings of 'Past Posts' in the righthand column on this page, choose your month of interest, and then select (by clicking) the post of your choice.

DEC 5, insects: entomologists

Authors' Note: Fact-sheets dealing with related key information have been posted here by etymologists. These include short poems pertaining to insects that eat woollens, scavenge for food, destroy wood structures, prey on human blood and torment domestic pets.

Readers are advised to exercise care in distinguishing entomologists from etymologists.

DEC 4, pluralia tantum: 'moronics' -- unusual fields of study

Grandpa Greg asked us to pass on this message: "You can view the entire collection of verses about 'pluralia tantum' by clicking HERE."

DEC 3, binomial phrases: 'publish or perish'

Authors' Note: The above treatise was assisted by a grant from the Foundation for Classic Binomial Expressions, under which permission was obtained for the use of song and dance, ants in one's pants, and publish or perish. (Other paired expressions, cheer and cherish, and funding and grants, are under development).