) APR 25 (2026) singable satire: 'FULSOME DICTION BLUES'

 b) Today's Offering (April 25, 2026): 

ORIGINAL PARODY-LYRICS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Folsom Prison Blues" is a popular country-and-western song recorded in its best-known form by Johnny Cash in 1955, covered by many other artists.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, June, 2014.

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "MAUX-DE-TEXTE" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

FULSOME DICTION BLUES

(to the tune of "Folsom Prison Blues")

I favor precise syntax, also terms that aren't obscure,
But skill in this regard don't earn no sinecure.
We're stuck with fulsome diction, careenin' round the curve.  
Objurgatin' parlous parlance takes vigor, vim and verve.

The origin of 'specious' lies deep within the soul;
You try to be ingenious, but suffice to be 'mindful'.I classed a guy as 'restive' - what I meant was 'calmed'
Now I'll feel so meretricious until when I'm embalmed.

I presage Big Bananas in a gaudy chauffered Benz, 
They'll likely smoke Havanas with their double-malted blends;
They'll purvey inchoate music, an 'ivory-tickler' too,  And they'll launch the night's diversion without further 'adieu'. (pron. ad-yoo)

I sense those noisome symptoms, not 'symptomatology';
There is method in my madness, but not 'methodology'.
Post-cibal declamations -  they're what one calls verbose;
I'll forgo the panegyrics, when I'm more otiose. 

 I flaunt my proper diction with no expletives abstruse,
 'Though such punctilious practice serves no heuristic use; 
 To chide bombastic speaking needs vigor, vim and verve.
 A paradigm to strive for, from which one shouldn't swerve.

) APR 20 (2026) singable satire: "ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS' (part #2, L to Z)

 

ORIGINAL SONG: "The Elements", Tom Lehrer, 1959.

Occasional binomials show alliteration
(e.g. one and only)

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio,  2015. This song is the third of nine in the series on Word Pairs. You can find the links to the lyrics of the previous songs at the bottom of the post. 

CHORD-CHARTS etc. As is usually the case with song-lyrics, we have simultaneously provided suggested chords for ukulele, guitar or whatever-stringed-instruments for the parody and for the original lyrics on our music-buff site "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE". 

To access ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS #2" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

EXPLANATION: The current effort involves a linguistic device discussed by Wikipedia as “Siamese twins” or ‘Irreversible Binomials”. These 

phrases include some of the most colorful expressions in English. There are probably a thousand binomial expressions in the English language. To enhance the singability, I have skewed my selection of binomial pairs here, to emphasize those that have alliteration of the 2 elements. 

For discussion of binomials, see the recent post HERE; there is a also an earlier post that honors our previous exploration of these intriguing expressions, and is entitled "The Allure of Word-Pairs: Alliterative Binomials (compendium)".

UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY LINK: Our whole series of songs can be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players on our sister blog  "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE". Click HERE to proceed to this site. 

There’s latitude and longitude, and lads and lasses, lemon — lime,
And lend or lease, last (but not least), and lords and ladies, mock and mime.
And live and learn, and mind o’er matter, mounts and molehills, lock and latch,
And over — out, lewd and lascivious, love or leave it, mix and match.

There’s meek and mild, and name and number, now or never, men and mice,
Out and about, it’s odds and evens, one and only, on thin ice.
There’s prince and pauper, prim and proper, pen and paper, peas in pod,
And pig in poke, and poems and prose, and pots and pans, and poke and prod.

There’s “Pride” and also “Prejudice”, and publish — perish, parcel post,
(In Britain, they’ve been smitten with odd variants like “rule the roast”),
And pain and pleasure, quake and quiver, quirks and quarks, and rant and rave,
And rough and ready, right or wrong, no rhyme or reason, scratch and save.

There’s rock and roll, repair — reset, and rest and rehab, rod and reel,
And rags to riches, rules and regs, and search and seizure, sign and seal.
And signs and symptoms, short but sweet, and sink or swim, and run- arounds,
— From sea to shining sea there’s stress and strain amid the sights and sounds.

The Stars and Stripes, once spick and span, show slow but steady slip and slide;
With toil and trouble, trials and tribulations, trick or treat, and tried
But true (that’s cause to sue), sticks — stones, unfit — unable, tit for tat,
Through thick or thin, and toss and turn, and tots and toddlers, this-or-that.

There’s tarts and tortes, and truck and trailer, sugar — spice, and top and tail
And vice and virtue, vim and vigor, wax and wane, and weep and wail,
And wash and wear, and wild and woolly, warp and weft, and where or when,
Within — without, and whys and wherefores, watch and wait, and yearn and yen.

Press enter or click to view image in full size

And, for those interested, here's how you find the lyrics-only-version

of the ten songs that make up this cycle. If you would like to  accompany yourself on ukulele or guitar, find relevant chord charts by following the links that will take you to the versions in our blog "Silly Songs and Satire". 

1. PAIRS, to the tune of "Words" in the style of the Beegees

...  the following songs in the style of "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer

2. ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS, part#1

3. ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS, part#2

4. RHYMING BINOMIALS, part#1

5. RHYMING BINOMIALS, part#2

6. A LESSON ABOUT REDUPLICATIONS

7. REDUPLICATIONS, part#1

8. REDUPLICATIONS, part#2

9. LEGALISTIC DOUBLETS, in the style of "Supercalifragilistic..." from  the musical "Mary Poppins"

\ \

APR 15, 2026: VERSUM TERSUM, Limericks for LOVERS of CLASSIC LANGUAGES [7]

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, September 2018. The involved verses have been published at OEDILF.com, an online humor dictionary that has accumulated 120,000 carefully edited limericks.

CURRENT CONTENTS

Aramaic

Greek

Hebrew alphabet

Homo latinophonius

Constantinopolis

Yukky Roman foods

Anglo-Latin  (4 verses, a 'brief  saga')

Authors' Note: In its earlier versions, the Hebrew alphabet was a pure abjad, or consonantary, with over twenty consonants, but no vowel sounds. The modern script used today has five symbols which may assist in the vocalization of vowels. In certain specific usages (poetry, teaching children, studying ancient texts, books of prayer used in the diaspora), a system of diacritic marks under the letters indicates the standardized vowel sounds. Without them, as in the majority of informal printed texts and in handwriting, you have to know some grammar, and have a moderate vocabulary of root words (often consisting of three consonants) to solve the meaning.   

Authors' Note:

mus (MOOS): Latin for ‘mouse’

puer (POO-er): 'boy', a prototype Latin noun, often used in early lessons to introduce the topic of declension

faex: Latin for 'dreg', 'sediment' or 'deposit'

faeces: the more familiar plural form

The author has several decades of experience in attempting to get trainees who had never studied Latin to use Anglo-Latin words appropriately in medical reports. 

Presumably, Linnaeus' associates and protégés in 18th century Swedish academia were all well-versed in Latin.

Authors' Note: Our seer in Byzántion likely made his prediction in the early 4th century A.D.

Byzántion: Greek name for the Greek colonial city-state founded on the Bosporus in pre-Roman times; known in Latin as Byzantium, it lent its name to the subsequent Byzantine Empire

Konstantinoúpolis, and Constantinopolis: Greek and Latin names respectively for the expanded city, planned as his empire's eastern capital (Nova Roma) by Roman emperor Constantine; known in English as Constantinople

Hagia Sophia (ah-yah so-FEE-ah) Greek for Holy Wisdom; famed for its huge dome, the third iconic church built on the site served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral from 537 A.D. until 1453, the year of conquest by the Ottoman Turks

Istanbul: capital of the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently of modern Turkey, the city's current population of 15 million (2017) makes it Europe's most populous city.

Authors' Note: 

gigeria: Latin term for the delicacy 'cooked bird entrails'; forerunner of the old French term gisier, from which our use of gizzard is derived

garum: highly popular Roman sauce made from fermented fish intestines, used equivalently to our catsup

Gourmands in ancient Rome were notorious for their consumption of exotic (and in modern terms yukky) foods of all sorts.

 

Note that the four 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 "DELIGHTS of ANGLO-LATIN" by proceeding to our song-blog "Silly Songs and Satire". Click HERE.

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 through the summer of 2026. 

As of March, 2026, 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 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.

APR 10, 2026: DEATH and the afterlife #3 [5]

The current blogpost represents continuation of an earlier post, dealing with wider  issues, entitled  'DEATH and the AFTERLIFE, celestial #1'  displayed on April 10, 2024 and April 10, 2025. 

CURRENT CONTENTS: (#3 --April 10, 2026)
Memorial service
(Sic) to death
Will's last testament
Bequest ( 3 stanzas, a 'brief saga')

Author's Note:  Although the short forms 'Will' and 'Bill' may be casually interchanged as first names (short forms of ‘William’), the nouns 'will' (as in 'last will and testament') and 'bill' are generally used with more careful scrutiny. ‘Will’ and ‘testament’ being essentially synonyms, the expression is a prototypical example of the redundant binomial expressions that seem to be loved by lawyers.

 Subtle differences in the form of idioms may underwrite important differences in meaning. ‘At last’ and ‘at the last’ seem similar, but in fact their usage and meaning differs considerably.

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

APR 5, 2026: REVERSING VERSE, classic wordplay, palindrome-poems#7

 

    This post is a continuation of 'CLASSIC BIDIRECTIONAL WORDPLAY', as posted on this blog on April 5, 2020 (palindromes#1), April 5, 2021 (palindromes#2), April 5, 2022 (palindromes#3), April 5, 2023 (palindromes#4), April 5, 2024 (palindromes#5), and April 5, 2025 (palindromes#6)

previous poetic posts (Note that captions are available for poems displayed on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" as of 2024).

(palindromes#1): A dim 'No' from Ida. A man, a plan, a canal... A Santa at NASA. A Toyota's a Toyota. Able ere Elba. An igloo! Cool, Gina! 

(palindromes#2): Dennis sinned. Do geese see God? Dogma: I am God. Drawn onward. Emil's lime.

(palindromes#3): z, z, z, z, z, z.

(palindromes#4): Flee to me, remote elf. Gnu dung. Go hang a salami... Lonely Tylenol. Madam, I'm Adam. Mix a maxim.

(palindromes#5): Mr. Owl ate my metal worm. Never odd or even. No 'D'; no 'L; -- London. No left felon. No lemon, no melon. No sir, prison.

(palindromes#6): No 'X' in Nixon. Racecar. Saw-and see-lines. Sex at noon taxes. Sex of foxes. Step on no pets. 

CURRENT CONTENTS: (#7 -- April 5, 2026)

T. Eliot's toilet
To idiot:
Too hot to hoot
UFO tofu
Yreka bakery
Zeus sees Suez

Authors' Note:

Sir; a plan, if final — Paris.

  In December 2015, the United States, under President Barack Obama, became a part of the Paris Accord, an international convention to mitigate the effects of climate change by curtailing production of greenhouse gases.

  In June 2017, President Donald Trump, whose personal business depended in large part on the construction and operation of golf-resorts, proceeded to withdraw from the treaty.

  Immediately after his inauguration in January 2021, President Joe Biden took measures to rejoin the accord.

Click here to learn more about Yreka CA.

For more "classic palindromes", please proceed to the seventh bidirectional journey by clicking  HERE.

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 through the summer of 2026. 

As of March, 2026, 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 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.