Saturday, 20 December 2025

DEC 20 '25: Meet Our Panel of Contributing Palindromists

Meet The Panel of Submitting Palindromists for the “Anals of Nonsense”

2 min readNov 29, 2025

(inner workings of the editorial office)

INTRODUCTION:

Following the birth of the “Anals of Nonsense” (more formally known as “Daily Illustrated Nonsense”), editors were struck by the frequency with which members of the writing public submitted unsolicited lists of palindromic phrases, apparently hoping for publication of this material. The vast majority of this doggerel was submitted by six rather prolific contributors, and we have offered each of them an honorary but reversible position as “Assistant Editor for Palindromes”. We spent some time tabulating their outpourings, and came up with these summaries that we hope will provide some insight into their predilections and their personalities.

writing sample by palindromist Don’s Ho — inspirational phrases and creative writing proferred by palindrome contributor Don’s Ho

writing sample by palindromist Sarah Palindrome — inspirational phrases and creative writing proferred by palindrome contributor Sarah Palindrome

writing sample by palindromist Melonia — inspirational phrases and creative writing proferred by palindrome contributor Melonia

writing sample by palindromist Ed, the Derailed Liar — inspirational phrases and creative writing proferred by palindrome contributor Ed, the Derailed Liar

writing sample by palindromist Hal Lelujah — inspirational phrases and creative writing proferred by palindrome contributor Hal Lelujah

writing sample by palindromist Terse Reverse — inspirational phrases and creative writing proferred by palindrome contributor Terse Reverse

In a more defined protocol, we have asked each of these contributors, at intervals, to respond to a particular classic palindrome. Medium readers will be among the first to see these astounding results — stay tuned!

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS:

To resume your review of the sequence of 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 at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until July 2025.

As of July 20, 2025, there are 2,000 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics.

Most of the key elements, such as this one, are also assembled here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.

The "Daily" format, a formidable mix of genres, also has the advantage of including song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

Monday, 15 December 2025

DEC 15 '25: Poems About Avian Life: BIRDLORE, nesting #4

This post is a continuation of a collection of verses about 'LANDBIRDS', as posted on this blog on December 15, 2022 (nesting#1), December 15, 2023 (nesting #2), and December 15, 2024 (nesting #3).

previous poetic posts

(nesting #1): American goldfinches, birdfeeders, bird droppings, boat-tailed grackles, California scrub-jays, cattle egrets

(nesting #2) cedar waxwings, dawn chorus, de-snooding (domestic turkeys), eagles and eaglets, eastern towhees, house finches

(nesting #3): northern cardinals, pigeons, red-tailed hawks, red-winged blackbirds, robins.

CURRENT CONTENTS (nesting #4):

Toucans

Tufted tit(mouse)

Turkey lovers

Avian digestion (6 stanzas; a 'brief saga')

Domestic turkeys (3 stanzas; a 'brief saga')

this verse has been approved for publication at OEDILF #128209

Authors' Note: The tufted titmouse, Baeolophus bicolor, a small cute bird that inhabits the eastern part of North America is named for the crest of feathers on his head, and for old English words for "little bird". Other species of Baeopholus are found in North America, and there are related genera of songbirds known as "titmice" in Europe. The archaic suffix "-mouse" currently adds little to the description of this perky visitor, so he is often known simply as a "tufted tit".

Check out a brief video (live photo) of the tufted titmouse HERE.

(Note that the three stanzas of this "brief saga" can be found in more readily legible format on the blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense"; click HERE.)

And as a later development, we put words to music. You can now sing along with the song "DOMESTIC TURKEY" by proceeding to our blog "Silly Songs and Satire". Click HERE.

Note that the six stanzas of this "brief saga" can be found in more readily legible format on the blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense"; click HERE.

And as a later development, we put words to music. You can now sing along with the song "AVIAN DIGESTION" by proceeding to our blog "Silly Songs and Satire". Click HERE (link under construction)

(Ed. note) If you enjoyed these illustrated verses about landbirds, you might also want to work your way through our collection of some forty illustrated short poems about waterfowl. Proceed to "Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl", here on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS:
To resume your review of the sequence of 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 at the bottom of the page, and check the daily offerings for any month from the start of 2020 until July 2025.
As of July 20, 2025, there are 2,000 unique entries available on the daily blog, displaying individual poems (often illustrated) and wordplay, but also with some photo-collages and parody song-lyrics.
Most of the key elements, such as this one, are also assembled here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.
The "Daily" format, a formidable mix of genres, also has the advantage of including song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

Wednesday, 10 December 2025

Grandpa Greg's Advanced Grammar: PLURALIA TANTUM

CURRENT CONTENTS:
Ceremonial events

Eruptions (rashes)

Cooking ingredients

Condolences

Backwoods

High hopes

Moronics

Careers (3 verses, a 'brief saga')

Authors' Note: Plurale tantum, meaning plural only, is a Latin-derived term (with plural form pluralia tantum), for a noun that has no, or only a minimally used singular form, e.g. alms, auspices, and dregs. There are over one hundred of these in English. In other languages, such forms are commonly used to refer to ceremonial time-points on life's journey, but in English we have only the relatively archaic terms banns, nuptials, obsequies and remains, also last rites and final respects. Bryce's attempt to help his audience is incorrect, as these peculiarly plural nouns generally are paired with a plural verb-form.

nuptials by the lake

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.

Authors' Note:

clunky: slang for 'awkward'

Our disappointed grammar-buff is right: a lot of grammar is not derived from logical principles. All languages face the problem of characterizing masses and groups of undistinguished small objects as singular or plural. This dilemma seems to reach its peak with items that are the basis of cooking. Despite an attempt to find rules, there is no dependency on particle size.

Nouns used only, or principally in the plural form are known as pluralia tantum; those used excusively in the singular form are known as singularia tantum. This usage varies from one language to another. We find some foreign uses 'incomprehensible', as in the general Hebrew plural form mayim for 'water', despite the fact that, on occasion, "Still waters run deep."

Authors' Note: The above verse provides several further examples of the grammatical phenomenon pluralia tantum. An idiom associated with providing condolences for the family and friends of a single deceased person is to 'pay one's final respects'.

Authors' Note:

Urals: The Ural Mountains, a discrete range running north and south, separates old Russian from more sparsely populated Siberia, and is considered as the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia.

The above verses provide further examples of the grammatical phenomenon pluralia tantum.

Note that the three verses of this "brief saga" can be found in more readily legible format on the blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense"; click HERE.

OVERLAPPING THEMES:

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS:

Most of the key elements, such as this one, are also assembled here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.

The "Daily" format, a formidable mix of genres, also has the advantage of including song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

Friday, 5 December 2025

DEC 5 '25, Staving off neoplasia: ONCOLOGY VERSES

CURRENT CONTENTS:
Cancerophobia
Benign tumours
Image-guided biopsy
(Pat's) adenoma
Malignant tumours
Hem-oncologists
Frei's syndrome (facial nerve palsy)
Hybrid PET-CT imaging for cancer

Authors' Note: Readers should be aware that the guidebook deals primarily with the lexical aspects of benign tumors, and is therefore of interest primarily to word-nerds and Scrabble-players, rather than pathologists or other health professionals.

Also, visitors to the online site OEDILF.com might note that close to thirty verses dealing with benign human tumors already grace the 'pages' of that dictionary-in-progress. One-third of these were written by the prolific SheilaB, a retired physician,including acoustic.neuroma, angioma, cementoblastoma, chemodectoma, cystoma, dicytoma, hamartoma and lipoma.

Authors' Note: The above verse panders to the jargony use of the medical term biopsy,as a verb. The position mentioned in the verse would apply specifically to fine-needle biopsy of the prostate, a procedure discussed in a verse HERE.

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’.

Here's a LIST OF LINKS to collections of intriguing poems (over 200 of these!) on medical/dental topics, updated to December 2024.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS:

Most of these key elements of our work are assembled here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.

The "Daily" format, a formidable mix of genres has the advantage of including song-lyrics, videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.