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, palinku (poetic novelty): timidity

 You can view  all our "palinku" verses if you proceed with a single click tthat will take you 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.)
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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 collections of verses on this topic 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 extreme 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 13, duplication: harum-scarum

Readers willing to go down an internet rabbit-hole can easily get to a collection of more than a dozen other short verses SHORT VERSES  in which we have dealt with specific reduplications. 

If interested you could also discover three fairly lengthy PATTER-SONGS about this fascinating linguistic phenomenon. These songs form an important part of our cycle of 9 songs about "Word Pairs".

DEC 12, folio-entry, couples: gorillas

 

You can view this sample from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" 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, a brief saga: hemianopsia

Authors' Note: Loss of sight in half of an eye's visual field is a medically well-characterized and significant lesion known as hemianopsia, or occasionally hemianopia. An attack on the underlying lesion, often deep within the brain is in the province of neurosurgeons, and often a multidisciplinary team is needed. The bitemporal pattern discussed here, involving the lateral half of each eye's visual field, is less common than homonomous hemianopsia. For further reading on this topic, the Wikipedia article is suggested.

Authors' Note:  Lesions in the occipital, or posterior portion of the brain's cerebral hemispheres are notorious for producing visual disruption. Each side of this sensitive area of brain tissue is targeted at integrating one half of the patient's visual field (to left or right). So for example, a tumour in the right side of the occipital lobe interrupts the signals arriving from the nerve fibres in the right side of the retina in both eyes; the patient's ability to see objects in the well-defined semi-circular zone to his left is eliminated in a fashion that is homonomous, i.e. congruent - both eyes are affected similarly. The resulting pattern of contralateral loss of visual sensation (homonomous hemianopsia) may be mapped by a test known as perimetry (visual-field analysis).

 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 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 several weeks to over a year. 

 There are now over 40 of these lengthier bits of doggerel featured at OEDILF in Giorgio's "Author's Showcase". The OEDILF number for each accepted multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. We have been blog-publishing these poetic adventures here monthly since January 2020.

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (January 2023), proceed to... 'Squid in the Time of Covid'.  

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (November 2022), back up to 'Palindrome Workshop'.

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

2020
2021
2022
2023.

DEC 9, holidays and celebrations: poinsettias

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