Thursday 30 March 2017

Weekly Wordplay

WORDPLAY post #36
Periodic postings of palindromes, Scramble-Town Maps (creative cartography), binomial phrases, limericks, etc. 

SONGLINK: For those readers who like poetry set to music: You can find lots of singable limerick-medleys and other spoofs on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE", such as this recent post


HOT LINK to the Anagram Sister Cities Initiative - complete collection









HOT LINKS to collections of Classic/Goofy Palindromes #1,#2,#3















Saturday 25 March 2017

Healing Political Divisiveness: The Anagram Sister-City Initiative

WORDPLAY post #35
CREATIVE CARTOGRAPHY and WORDPLAY, derived from post #17.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, March 2016, revised February, 2017.
SONGLINK: On "Giorgio's Ukable Parodies", post #122, a parody-song "Great Anagrams" deals with the distribution of anagrams based on the words R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S and D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-S.

EXPLANATORY NOTE: The initial concept for this piece, developed during the buildup to the election of November 2016, highlighted the nonsense of anagrams as a mechanism to defuse the intense partisan animosity that became manifest during that tumultuous period. Unfortunately, following the election, the animosity has continued and even intensified further. Different media sources, viewpoints and responses to developments characterize the 2 populations, which now live in 'alternate realities', and it has become more difficult to 'sit on the fence' (a frequent pose taken by the author). 
  Consequently, I now propose a mechanism for reintegrating our divided society, and returning to a more balanced equilibrium. Communities might be easily located where the predominant viewpoint reflects one of the '2 solitudes'. Even within these towns, more open-minded citizens could be persuaded to become involved in exchanges with 'sister-cities' that otherwise share some demographic similarities, but who presently seemed to be uncompromisingly devoted to the opposite point-of-view. Here are some initial proposals for pairs of communities which might benefit by such an exchange of viewpoints.




































Monday 20 March 2017

Weekly Wordplay

WORDPLAY post #32
Weekly postings of palindromes, anagram maps, binomial phrases, limericks, etc.











HOT LINKS to collections of Classic/Goofy Palindromes #1,#2,#3
























Wednesday 15 March 2017

International Collaboration on Anagrams: Johnny Cash and Stompin' Tom Have Been Everywhere

WORDPLAY POST #33
CREATIVE CARTOGRAPHY, based on anagrams of the letters of the word P-A-L-I-N-D-R-O-M-E-S
SONG LINK: On our sister-blog "Giorgio's Ukable Parodies" there are 2 versions of a parody patter-song modeled after the Lucky Starr/ Hank Snow / Johnny Cash / Stompin' Tom Connors hit "I've Been Everywhere". See our U.S. version here, and our Canadian version here.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, June 2015, updated March 2017.



Location of towns mentioned in the Johnny Cash epistle.














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The maps shown above display more than 220 such towns identified by their name and state/province postal code in the U.S.A. and Canada.


The image below shows another collection of 40 anagrammatic place-names that are not specified by postal code. 




READERS: Now that you are familiar with all the anagrams, you can satisfy your urge to sing this material by proceeding to the SONG LINKS at the top of the post. ENJOY!



Friday 10 March 2017

The Absurdity of English: Singable Update of the Poem "The Chaos" by G.N.Trenité

WORDPLAY POST #32
PASTICHE-POETRY in SINGABLE FORMAT.
ORIGINAL POEM:   "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenité , 1920. 
SONG LINK: See "post #79" on "Giorgio's Ukable Parodies" 
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, June, 2015.


Original version of the poem "The Chaos"

“The Chaos” is a poem written by the Dutch writer and English-teacher Gerard Nolst Trenité as a comment on the difficulty of English pronunciation. The work was published by the author in various versions (of increasing length) over the period 1920 to 1944; it has frequently appeared unattributed with some re-editing.







NOTES ON THE UPDATING (per G.C.):
I have made changes quite liberally in the poem in adapting it, including 1) removing lines with dated language, 2) giving priority to American rather than British pronunciation,  3) changing the politically-incorrect context with the implied female character now serving as the language expert as well as the inspiration,  4) creating some thematic stanzas based on the subject matter of the targeted orthographic difficulties, and 5) adding a final stanza to emphasize the learner's problem of accenting the correct syllable.

Most importantly, the work has been made singable, including a touch of Caribbean lilt in relation to the ORIGINAL SONG, "Limbo Rock", as recorded, 1962, by Chubby Checker. See Giorgio's version of the song, "Chaos Talk" by clicking at the songlink.





Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenite, 1870-1946





LANGUAGE ROCK 
(Singable Revision of G.N.Trenite's "The Chaos")



Greatest creature God create -
Teacher, please enunciate.
Show how sounds should auscultate
Make my head to oscillate.
Heat up versions in your verse
Words like corpse, corps, horse, hoarse, hearse
Tear in eye, tear dress and worse
Tersely parse, or pierce your purse.

History of a billet-doux  -
Dizzy mystery to me, Sue
Why a busy quasi-poet
On excuse like me do dote
It's enough, you found in jiff
I'm not into petroglyphs,
Aural word-play that you wrote
Oar or ore, rose, rows my boat.

Fair seer, swear, I fear compare
Health, heard; here’s my heartfelt prayer,
Sword and Britain, sweaty mitt
Seems so foreign, how it's writ
'Bidded' better said then 'bade'?
Play-played, bad, pay-paid, laid plaid.
I'll be careful how I speak,
Like: brush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak.

Ballot matches not ballet,
Wallet, mallet (for croquet).
Blood and wood are not good food
Nor is mould like cowed or mooed.
Diet, dies, alive, grieve, live
Wounded, rounded, ivy, sieve
Privy, famous, clamor, damn!
Rhymes with private rhythm, clam.

Allow hallowed, said aloud
People, leopard, snowed, plowed, proud
Fatal channel and banal
Promise and surprise canal
Monkey, donkey, chalk, cork, jerk
Ask, grasp, wasp and work or shirk
Doctrine, asinine, pristine
Mouth, youth, southern, cleanse lens clean.

One, won, only, onion, owe
Two, canoe, too often throw
Four, fork, forty, flour, folk
Eight, weight, wait, faint, feint, weird, woke
No one, none, knot, nothing, love
Some, sum, chute, shone, subtle shove
Many maniacs meant amends
Few refined fiends find true friends.

Brother, older, bother both
Sister, cistern, system; oath!
Father, fatter, falter, fault
Mother, macho, mutter, malt
Daughter, laughter, draft and drought
Son, soup, shoulder, shouldn't shout
Niece and nephew, office, police
Lice, delicious, peace, release.

Winter, women, whine and dyne
Spring, sigh, singer, ginger, sign
Summer, comer, hymn and thyme
Autumn, fallow, chimp and climb
Whether, weather, ware and tare
Front, from, font, and fowl or fare
Mown, sewn, sod in Heaven – odd!
Even 'eye', I'm overawed.
   
Limbo guys like Gene and John
Dance all night with Jean and Dawn
Just like movies that you've seen
Guests lean back, view groovy scene
Choose loose clothes to cruise the show
Limbo, how low can you go?
Limber ladies – limbs can seize
Please don't freeze and squeeze your knees.

Accent's hard to get correct
As in current or connect
Segment, portrait they portray
Moray, banquet and filet.
Insight, inquest and intent
Recent recipe, cement
Exit or exist, exude
Concert and request - conclude!







Sunday 5 March 2017

Word of the Month: Summaries and Forecasts by Ed, the Derailed Liar

WORDPLAY post #31
TERSE QUOTABLE QUOTES 
Guest Author: Ed, the Derailed Liar. The current post is a continuation of post #9, which was a lengthier collection of quotable quotes, based on Ed's propensity to communicate bidirectionally in palindromes.
EDITOR: Giorgio Coniglio, March 2017.