Wednesday 20 December 2023

American wordplay map with versification: C-O-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-I-O-N-A-L








 

Author's Note: As sometimes happens, until corrected by some callers-in, I inadvertently left out a few relevant locales. So, apologies to the residents of Tunisian Loot and Alto Unionist CT, Stout Coaltin and U.S. Cottontail IN, Antisnout Cot IL, and Locust Tot Inn IA.




Friday 15 December 2023

"WHENCE" VERSE: More limericks about ETYMOLOGY

WORDPLAY post #119
SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio,  2018. Many of today's verses have also been published (or remain under review) at OEDILF.com, an online humour dictionary that has accumulated over 100,000 carefully edited limericks. 
See previous verses about the derivation of words in Giorgio's blog-collection at post #112.

SONGLINK: For those readers who like poetry set to music: You can find lots of singable limerick medleys on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE". 

By the way, to find more limericks, or any other search target on either of these 2 blogs, use the SEARCH-FUNCTION found at the top of the righthand margin.


































For still more verses about the origin of words, see post #124, "Still More Verses about Word Origin".


Sunday 10 December 2023

(Re)DUPLICATIONS, part #2


This post represents a continuation of our previous missive from January 5, 2023:
Grandpa Greg's Advanced Grammar: (re)DUPLICATIONS, part #1

previous posted poems (part #1) 
cootchie-cootchie-coo
clap-trap
dilly-dally
fuddle-duddle
fuddy-duddy
hanky-panky
harum-scarum
helter-skelter

CURRENT CONTENTS
Higgledy-piggledy
Hobo
Hocus-pocus
Hodge-podge 
Hoi-polloi
Holus-bolus
Hubba-hubba

 


Authors' Note: Higgledy-piggledy is yet another (re)duplication relating to disorder and impetuousness whose meaning overlaps with helter-skelter, and harum-scarum.










Authors' NoteThe (re)duplication hoi polloi derives from the ancient Greek term for 'the many'. This expression, like its close cousin riff-raff (also a reduplication), has been used in class-conscious England for severlal centuries; similar expressions, tinged with disparagement include plebeian, and the great unwashed In a recent inexplicable twist, as described by speedysnail, hoi polloi has come to be used, in some circumstances, to mean the exact opposite.






Authors' Note:
bubba: stereotyped male inhabitant of the southern US with an upbeat, but macho attitude
Bubba: frequent nickname for a specific male, as used by his buddies

rubba: rubber (American slang for condom), with typical non-rhotic pronunciation
chick: southern girl

hubba-hubba: intriguing (re)duplication, presumably originating in the US a century ago; an expression of approval voiced by males when viewing a sexually attractive chick


Overlapping Themes



GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 
To resume daily titillations on our related blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of June 2024, there are about 1400 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.) The 'Daily' format also has the advantage of including some song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 
To resume daily titillations on our related blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of September 2023, there are over 1200 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.) The 'Daily' format has the advantage of including some videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.




Tuesday 5 December 2023

poems about canoeing: RE-VERSE STROKES

WORDPLAY post #136

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, August 2018.

 Today's verses, along with their accompanying notes, have been published at OEDILF.com, the online humour dictionary. At the bottom of each slide, the identification number is given for each published dictionary entry.
SONGLINKS: The underlying concepts for some of these verses had been adapted as parody-lyrics and set to the music of an ABBA tune in 2013. See the blogpost "Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe" on our lyrics blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE". The lines set out in the verses below evolved into a second nostalgic song about canoeing, which can be viewed here.

PHOTOS: Unless otherwise noted (by pale blue acknowledgment plaques), embedded photographs were taken with and transferred from Giorgio's cellphone. Following submission of the poems to OEDILF, the slides collages we present here were formatted using Powerpoint software on a vintage 2000-era PC computer. OEDILF has no involvement in the pictorial portion of this presentation. 

photo kindly provided by JJH



















If you are 12 or over, you can check out this verse on the later blogpost "Faintly Obscene Limericks". 




















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From the Archives: An Illustrated E-Mail about Urban Portaging, 2017

GxxHxxxxx gxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>@gmail.com

AttachmentsNov 13, 2016, 7:50 PM
to MikeJoshPaulDrAlecArtMarnaEric

I encountered this on my late afternoon cycle-ride through trendy Rosedale on a rainy autumn afternoon. In its second year, this festival, I found out, brings together people portaging canoes across a 17 km ancient aboriginal trail between the Humber and Don watersheds. At this point, the portagers had just crossed the Mt Pleasant Expressway.