JUL 14, national and multinational verse: la Francophonie

 

Authors' Note:

d'accord (da-KOHR): French for "certainly" or  "of course"

pays (peh-EE):  "country" (singular or plural)

Belgique (behl-ZHEEK):  Belgium

Canada (ka-na-DUH): French version

Haïti (ah-ee-TEE or ah-ee-SEE): Haiti, a difficult name for anglophones

     to pronounce

Afrique (a-FREEK): Africa

Mozambique: former Portuguese colony on Africa's southeast coast; it's name does not derive from French   

You can review our collection of verses about various individual nations, and about the groupings to which they belong, on our topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

JUL 13, defining opinion: hooey

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.

JUL 12, duplication: hobos

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".

                                                                                           

JUL 11, numbers: eleven/elf (11)

 You can review our cumulated nonsense about numbers by clicking HERE.

JUL 10, a brief saga (singular plurals): careers

 

Authors' Note: 

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

 Generally, OEDILF has not been enormously welcoming of multi-verse submissions, but Giorgio Coniglio has persisted, and there are now over 40 of these multi-verse poems featured in his '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.

 To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (August 2022), proceed to 'Mar-a-Lago' (dacha).

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (June 2022), back up to 'Canada'.

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

2020
2021
2022
2023.

JUL 9, doctors and their practices: lithotripsy specialist

Authors' Note: 'dais' may apparently be pronounced DYE-uhs or DAY-uhs, although the authors had been familiar with only the former pronunciation.

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!

JUL 8, poets' corner: 'Held'

Authors' Note:

 Held: a state of workshopping selected by an OEDILF author to shield their submission from discussion until further self-editing makes it suitable to return to the Tentative state for open collegial comment

A reminder: the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form is an online humor dictionary that has been making its way for 17 years through the alphabet to define the meaning(s) of each word in the English language. Its highly polished verses are accumulated by a collaborative editing process. In its 19 years of existence, it has progressed from A- to Ho-.  

You can find lots of other verses on this blog under the listing "Poets' Corner".  Click HERE.

  

JUL 7, trees: crepe myrtle xxxxxxxxxxxxLil

Addendum: Fall color, mid-Atlantic seaboard
photo kindly contributed by MMH

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". 

As today is Lil's birthday, we are re-posting some old photos. She would be 106 today!

1976

JUL 6, binomial phrases: "down and out"

To review our poetic effusion about binomial phrases proceed to our blog 'Edifying Nonsense', 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 !

JUL 5, insects: cryoprotection

Authors' Note: The isabella tiger moth, Pyrrharctia isabella enters the cold season in wintry parts of North America in the form of a banded woolly bear caterpillar. Traditionally, her peer-group would attempt to get through the winter by altering their metabolism to manufacture compounds known as cryoprotectives, allowing them to recover from freezing. Our protagonist seems to have discovered another way around this challenge.

 

JUL 4, American anagram swarms: election fraud

reprise from July 4, 2021

JUL 4, anagram swarm: 'ELECTION FRAUD' #4

 Continuing from the posts of January 16, January 18, January 20, January 22, January 24, and January 27. You might note that there are now more than 200 anagrams in this collection. Who would have guessed?

If you have enjoyed this post, you can find a series of other 'American anagram swarms' gathered in two posts on our 'parent' blog "Edifying Nonsense".  To get started, click HERE. 

JUL 3, English literature survey course: "La Belle Dame sans Merci" (Keats' poem)

Authors' Note: 

rêverie (rehv-uh-REE): French for ‘dream, daydream’

grotesque: term adopted from French for an ancient Roman decorative artform rediscovered in Rome in the 15th century. Grotesques depict fantastical scenes and figures; the related adjective highlights the bizarre and even frightening nature of the images

grot: poetic variant of ‘grotto’ 

merci (mehr-SEE): French for mercy, forgiveness

   The usual critical view is that the protagonist of the poem, transfixed by the 'faery's child', has been trapped and victimized. However, Keats' description in his poem written in 1819 (but taking place in a mythical medieval past), leaves little doubt that the 'Belle Dame' is underage. The societal view of what constitutes child molestation / statutory rape seems to have changed over time.

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

 

JUL 2, American satire (prolongation): 'unhinged'

We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find 40 more on this topic in 6 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start! 

JUL 1, Canadiana: Canadian weather

Authors' Note: 

hinterland: a geographic term for 'interior', derived from the German adverb hinder = 'behind'.

The author contends that the summary he received overemphasized the adverse climatic conditions faced by Canadians, the majority of whom live in the more temperate southern portions of the country.

mid-November in Toronto

You can review poems, pictures and diverse nonsense related to Canada on the post "Canadiana" on our full-service blog  "Edifying Nonsense". 

JUN 30, singable satire: guest-parodist Al Silver croons about "WHOLE FOODS"

PARODY-LYRICS: GUEST-ARTIST

ORIGINAL SONG: "Blue Moon" 1934,  Rodgers and Hart, covered by Billy Eckstine, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, The Marcels etc.

PARODY-LYRICS COMPOSED: Al Silver, January 2013, copied here with permission, and with a few minor changes. Al has been a frequent contributor to the AmIRight song-parody website.

You can view Al's delightful lyrics along with some commentary (without images or chords)  displayed on that website at AmIRight.com Post "Whole Foods"
Check out some of our previous posts, for other great parody-lyrics by Al Silver.

WHOLE FOODS

(to the tune of "Blue Moon")

Whole Foods
You saw me sickly and thin,
Without a blush on my cheek,
Without a glow to my skin.

Whole Foods
You knew you just had to heed me,
You saw the way you should lead me,
And had the health food to feed me.

And then I saw there was a cornucopia
Of all the nuts and grains I could consume
(I know I have to use the rhyme “Utopia”)
And when I ate, my cheek began to bloom.

Whole Foods
Now I’m not sickly and thin,
I've got a blush on my cheek,
I've got a glow to my skin.

I ate organic goat cheese and quinoa
Wheatberry, kale, nori, tofu, too
Some dingleberries shipped fresh from Samoa
And pomegranates flown in from Peru.

Whole Foods
My LDL is now 5,
Systolic down to a hundred.
I think I’m barely alive.

Whole Foods
My LDL is now 5;
I have a blush on my cheek
But I am barely alive.

A cornucopia

 

JUN 29, defining opinion: crepuscular

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.

JUN 28, domestic hazards: security system

 

JUN 27, pluralia tantum: 'eruptions' -- medical nomenclature

Authors' Note: Eruption is a venerable medical term for a skin rash, in use since an earlier era when practitioners paid careful attention to characteristic skin lesions and various symptoms, but knew little of disease causality such as viral infection and allergy. Traditional names for medical symptoms and diseases in general are often based on lay vernacular terms dating from a much earlier time. Shingles is also known as herpes zoster, the second term referring to the belt-like distribution of lesions.

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

Jun 26, duplication: hanky-panky

 Authors' Note:  Reduplications as they are best known, sometimes also called duplications, are language forms (morphs), usually for nouns, in which an element of the word is repeated with little or no change; they figure prominently among the most musical elements in English and in other languages. To this author, the more commonly used term seems redundant. Many other examples begin with the letter 'h', e.g. harum-scarum, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hillbilly, and hubba-hubba.

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. 

JUN 25, patients and their maladies: vitreous detachment

 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!

JUN 24, numbers: digits (base-10)

You can review our cumulated nonsense about numbers by clicking HERE.

JUN 23, poetic non-sequitur: judge's gavel, plus yesterday's temperature perversion

 

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.

JUN 22, diagnostic imaging: AC (attenuation correction) for PET scanning

Authors' Note:   Absorption of rays by body tissues complicates the interpretation of medical imaging with Positron Emission Tomography (PET). In equipment development since the year 2000, 'hybrid' scanners combine the nuclear camera with a CT x-ray unit that provides maps of attenuation; this technique for correction of attenuation (known to workers in the field as A.C.), makes PET more accurate in the detection of cancer. A potential limitation, the much lower energy of the photons used for x-ray CT, turns out to have little degrading effect in practical usage.

   Moreover, anatomic localization of the lesion can be obtained at the same session, enabling techniques such as superposition of the ‘hot’ focus on a 3D anatomic body-map. This technique has been given  the difficult and somewhat redundant term ‘PET-CT’.

 You can review all our verses on this intriguing topic by proceeding to a post on 'Edifying Nonsense' entitled 'Selected Topics in Diagnostic Imaging'. Click HERE!

JUN 21, planet-saving verse: invasive species

 

                                                                                                    

JUN 20, singable satire: Neil Young sings "GET ME ROGER STONE"

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, February 2019 (the brief sequel was added 2 month later). Readers interested in this topic might also enjoy Giorgio's lyrics posted on these earlier blogposts...
Dark Schemes
Rosenstein
Brennan's Tweet

ORIGINAL SONG: "Heart of Gold" 1971, written and recorded by legendary Canadian songwriter-performer Neil Young.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany this song on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

GET ME ROGER STONE - the song

(to the tune of "Heart of Gold"  by Neil Young) 


A foppish slickster,  a dirty trickster,

He’s worked with Manafort and ‘Tricky Dick’,

Deceptive tactics he knows to pick, sir

That keeps me seekin’ help from Roger Stone --

Get him on the phone.

That keeps me seekin’ help from Roger Stone,

Get him on the phone!

He is a slick son-xxx, let’s get him quick son,

He’s out-maneuvered jerks at Wiki Leaks.      

A touch of Lucifer, he speaks with Guccifer*.

We’ll trash the Clintons using Roger Stone --

Get him on the phone.

I like to seek advice from Roger Stone,

Get him on the phone!

I need to seek advice from Roger Stone.

A dirty trickster with a heart of stone.

Keep Special Counsel far from Roger Stone.

I’m in deep doodoo, get me Roger Stone.

*  Guccifer 2.0 is an online persona, that, according to U.S. documents of indictment, is operated by Russian millitary intelligence. In July 2016, 'Guccifer' claimed responsibility for hacking into emails of the U.S. Democratic National Committee, and releasing them to the media and to the website 'WikiLeaks'. 

Lucifer, Latin name for the morning star Venus, is treated in early Christian terminology as a synonym for Satan.  

SEQUEL:

His prospects sagged, judge has him gagged,

That gassy windbag, now he's on his own.

I barely knew him, best to eschew him.

Perhaps I'll later pardon Roger Stone--

Now, he's on his own.

|The Mueller Probe indicted Roger Stone.

I'll pardon later, but for now, disown.|   repeat and fade.