FEB 21r, American satire: nursery rhyme -- 'grating'

 

a) reprise from January 2020

JAN 21, American satire(1): nursery rhyme -- 'grating'

b) birdie-pic (from last summer) 

blue jay

FEB 20, singable satire: Tom Lehrer sings "NO ELEMENTS"

PARODY-LYRICS

ORIGINAL SONG: "The Elements", a parody by Tom Lehrer,1959. 

PARODY COMPOSED: "No Elements", Giorgio Coniglio, a patter-song based on examples of the third declension of Latin nouns, April 2013. A decade later, it might be worthwhile to review these lyrics once more!

EXPLANATION: Lehrer had adapted the tune of "The Major General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance". There are 3 somewhat different melodies/chord-sequences used in alteration through the GandS song, and in Lehrer's derived take-off.

PARODY SONGLINK: You can view the lyrics for "No Elements" with chord indications for ukulele or guitar, if you wish to accompany your singing of these lines. But warning! It is not an easy task, particularly the singing part! Click HERE.

NO ELEMENTS          

(to the tune of "The Elements")    

Singable Introduction:
Tom Lehrer became a legend with his scientific patter-song,

More popular and loved than his unpublished “Anti-Matter Song”;

Enhancing humdrum discourse, just to quote his ode lends elegance

To conversation thrumming with the spectrum of the Elements.

  

We face this glum conundrum as alumni of Philology:

Lay-folk would like a list replete with Latin etymology

The possibilities for neutral nouns in -U-M loom awesome;

No need to invoke hokum terms like tantrum or opossum, chum.

Most names for elements are
 neutral Latin nouns

The Roman empire included England

  

A famous building in Rome

      




 

Patter-Song Lyrics:
There’s atrium, asylum, arboretum, auditorium

Compendium and modicum and rostrum, crematorium

And coliseum, quantum, condominium, euphonium

And album, acetabulum, museum, pandemonium.

            

There’s maximum and minimum and optimum and medium

And opium, opprobrium, colloquium and tedium

Colostrum, serum, sputum, sebum, nostrum and meconium

And sternum, talcum, labium, ovum, spermatogonium.  

Caladium, nasturtium and laburnum and geranium

And sacrum, c(a)ecum, ischium and tympanum and cranium

Consortium, memorandum, and symposium and podium

Desideratum, datum, vacuum, ultimatum, odium.

There’s pablum, perineum, paramecium, petroleum

And locum and inoculum, lyceum and linoleum

A few English words ending in -UM
 are not of Latin origin

And tritium, deuterium, trapezium and trillium
Mycelium, flagellum, endothelium and cilium.

There’s quorum and decorum, mausoleum, moratorium

And premium, per-annum, honorarium, emporium

And pendulum and forum, fulcrum, speculum, bacterium

And cerebellum, plenum, sum, curriculum, delirium.

Gymnasium and stadium and magnum and terrarium

Solarium, momentum, myocardium, aquarium

And scrotum and factotum and postpartum and continuum

And duodenum, referendum, rectum and residuum.

Addendum #1
There's stratum, alum, allium, alluvium et alia,
And mom's pouch called marsupium, but mostly in Australia.

Addendum #2

To plural them, heads swirling them, “What single rule? - please answer, Pa”.

My dictum, “Don’t inflict ‘em with erratums or chrysanthema !” 

 

FEB 19r, waterfowl: Canada geese

 

a) reprise from February, 2020

FEB 19, waterfowl: Canada geese

b) updated birdie-pic

occasional aggressive stance adopted by a Canada goose

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

FEB 18r, pathos and poetry (gun control): Second Amendment rights

 

a) reprise from February 2020

FEB 18, pathos and poetry (gun control verse): Second Amendment rights

 

b: current birdie-pic

red-bellied woodpecker

FEB 17, palinku (poetic novelty): precepts

  In this post, we will continue with our novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry and its English language versions, this new form is used for a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike earlier forms, the "palinku" 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. 

ADDENDUM: Anyone for tenets?

 You can readily view all our verses of this type 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.)

FEB 16, postal places, Canada: La Tuque, QC

Authors' Note:  QC is the official abbreviation for the Canadian province of Quebec, in which La Tuque, population 11,000, is situated beside the St-Maurice River, 170 km (105 miles) north of the Saint Lawrence. The town's iconically shaped low mountain, resulting in its name (Fr. tuque is a soft wool hat), was partly destroyed in construction of a hydro-electric installation 80 years ago.

In each of the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, administrative rearrangements resulted in a handful of "cities" and "regional municipalities" with extensive areas that had low population densities, contrary to the usual expectation for urban centres. In this regard La Tuque heads up the pack, its central town surrounded by a vast forested area of 28,000 km² giving it a population density of 0.4/km², compared to Montreal, QC, and Quebec City, QC, with densities of 2,700 and 1,600/km² respectively.

 At one swell foop, you can review all our postal poems about intriguing places in the USA and Canada, by proceeding to the encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE !

FEB 15, Submitted Palindromes: RANDOM PILE #4

  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. Their profiles are indicated 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", and continuing with other well-known phrases, such as "Dennis sinned". Otherwise, their contribution will be grouped in 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 all of this delightful entertainment 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. 

FEB 14r, holidays and celebrations: Valentine's day

a) reprise 

"The Kiss" by Auguste Rodin, marble, 1882
(photo by G.C. at Rodin Museum, Paris, 2019)

b) current scene: Valentine's Day Solicitation (the young lady's hand-made sign notifies rush-hour drivers on the adjacent bridge, "I love you".)

FEB 13r, classic palindrome -- 'never odd or even'

a) reprise from February, 2020

FEB 13, classic palindrome: 'never odd or even'

Authors' Note: 

odd or even: binary classification of whole real numbers, related to basic counting, as in the idiomatic ‘counting sheep’ remedy for insomnia

never odd or even: classic palindrome that seems to revel, perhaps excessively, in the profusion of numbers that cannot be classified by the above simple scheme

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'.

 b) current birdie-pic

house sparrow

FEB 12r, magical palindromes: examples #6 to #10

 

a) reprise from February 2020

FEB 12, magical palindromes: examples #6 to #10

You can become an expert fan of our wordplay concoction 'magical palindromes' by reviewing the explanatory material found in ancient days on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE; then, you could check how we applied this technique to 'canal palindromes' by viewing this more recent post.

b) current birdie-pic

goldfinch, female 

FEB 11r, poetic non-sequitur: epistaxis

 

a) reprise from February 2020

FEB 16, non-sequitur: epistaxis

 Here's a verse that exemplifies use of the prefix EPI- ...

Authors' Note: 

peccadillo: loan-word from Spanish meaning 'little sin’

epistaxis (eh-pih-STAK-sihs): bleeding from the nostrils

b) current birdie-pic

bluebird window strikes
resumed  despite marker installation.
intentional, maladapted behaviour?

bluebird silhouette

FEB 10, the origin of "bloggerel": part#2 -- wordplay and photography

WORDPLAY: Like most writers and editors we love words. They are the basis of many of our song lyrics and poems. One of the greatest elements of wordplay is rhyme, a fact that provides some explanation for our persistence in lyrics and poetry. You will find a fair amount of better-defined wordplay on our blogs, including foreign-language borrowings, palindromes and anagrams. In certain cases we have gone to extremes, including "magic" palindromes, anagram wordplay-maps, and spoofs on classic palindromes, etymology and grammar rules. Because these activities consume a lot of time and effort, we have often been drawn to describe them in verse, posting those on the OEDILF site for editing and publication. And, although we are likely to have initiated a fair proportion of the "new" concoctions, we have not attributed them,as such material is lurking and waiting to be found among the letters and words, rather than "created".        

PHOTOGRAPHY: Dr.G.H. spent the latter part of his professional career dealing with the interpretation of low-resolution nuclear images in medical diagnosis. So we have a deep interest in visual documentation whose technique renders the key features obvious. For spontaneous nature photography on bicycle expeditions the cell-phone-camera is an obvious choice for portability, although resolution at a distance is an issue. Most of our photographs have been obtained with an i-phone 13, whose "live" feature provides an advance when the subject is moving. These photos enhance the "life-experience" nature of the posted material. On occasion, to make a point in a multi-media display, we borrow a relevant photo from the web, these are flagged by the term "web-photo", with colour coding of the text background, but space generally does not allow or mandate a full disclosure of the source. The reader is asked to please check these out, if indicated.  

FEB 9r, Carolina lowcountry: 'winter' excursion

 a) reprise from 2020

FEB 1, Carolina lowcountry: winter afternoon bicycle outing

If you are viewing these photos with an i-phone:
1) Hovering the selection arrow over any photo will prompt the appearance of the 'title'.
2) You can enlarge any photo (a black background may appear) by clicking it.
3) To escape from black-background-display limbo, look for a TINY 'x' in the far upper-right corner, and click there.
The procedure is mostly the same on a PC, but the tininess of the escape mechanism on my iphone7 is truly remarkable.

Giorgio (on the left) with
Pete the Plastic Pelican

Other Canadian retirees

At the harbor,
Mt. Pleasant SC

Lunch: Heron-herring?
No! That's a great egret with a shrimp

lowcountry pizza-boxes

b) current birdie-pic

window-strike by persistent bluebird: frontal view

FEB 8, oncologic verses: hem-oncologists

Authors' Note: The field of hematology encompasses a wide range of blood maladies, including anemias and clotting disorders. On our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense", you can find a related blogpost with numerous verses on the latter topic. Click HERE for "To Clot, or Not to Clot".

 In some academic centres, hematologists have super-specialized in treating the group of cancers involving blood elements, such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma; these experts are variably known as hem-oncologists or haematology-oncologists.  

 

 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!

FEB 7r, poets' corner: the depressed limericist

 

a) reprise from February 2020

FEB 10, poets' corner: the depressed poet

Authors' Note: In the above limerick verse, dehiscitude (reminiscent of 'dehiscence'), and remissitude (reminiscent of being 'remiss' in the sense of 'culpable') are neologisms (word concoctions) invented by the author. Wound dehiscence, or 'failure of primary (wound) closure', is a feared surgical complication, found mostly in the province of abdominal surgeons and trauma surgeons; it seldom affects the professional practice of psychiatrists or limericists. 

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

b) current birdie-pic

ongoing problems with window strikes:
a pair of apparently deranged bluebirds