BINOMIAL EXPRESSIONS, a Compendium derived from the previous four sets

  This post is a continuation of a collection of verses dealing with the grammatic device of 'BINOMIALS' as posted on this blog on August 5, 2022 (first set of examples), August 5, 2023 (second set),  August 5, 2024 (third set), and August 5, 2025 (fourth set).

Editors' Note:  Before proceeding to these collections of short verses, readers might benefit from reviewing an earlier post entitled Edification about Word-Pairs: "The Binomials", A Linguistic Lesson.

titles of prior displayed poems:

(first set): betwixt and between, bigger and bigger, birds and bees, bump and grind, by hook or by crook, down and out.  

(second set): far and wide (hives), first and last, flora and fauna, flotsam and jetsam, food and drink, hale and hearty.

(third set): hem and haw, here and there, high and dry, hug and kiss, poop and scoop,  publish or perish.

(fourth set): right or wrong, sin and redemption, healthy wealthy and wise, echoic binomials (a 'brief saga').

COMPENDIUM bsed on the four sets:

ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS: around and about, betwixt and between, birds and bees, cash or cheque, cool and calm, down and dirty, flora and fauna, four or five, hale and hearty, (to) have and (to) hold, he and she, Heaven and Hell, hem and haw, his and hers, kith and kin, live and learn, lords and ladies, on and off, publish or perish, quid pro quo, right or wrong, vim and vigor .

RHYMING BINOMIALS: ants in one’s pants, fair and square, haste makes waste, he and she, high and dry, (by) hook or (by) crook, hot to trot, near and dear, poop and scoop, shake and bake, surf and turf, tease and please, wear and tear, wine and dine.

ECHOIC BINOMIALS: all in all, back to back, bigger and bigger, bit by bit, boy oh boy, by and by, cheek to cheek, day to day, eye to eye, hand in hand, heart to heart, hour by hour, line by line, more and more, play by play, time after time, toe to toe, wall to wall, year by year.

TRINOMIALS: snug as a bug in a rug; whence wherefore and whither; healthy, wealthy and wise.

RUN-OF-THE-MILL BINOMIALS: bangers and mash, beck and call, (for) better or (for) worse, billing and cooing, bride and groom, bump and grind, cheek by jowl, cheque or cash, come and go, crash and burn, down and out, ebb and flow, far and wide, first and last, fish and chips, flotsam and jetsam, food and drink, fore and aft, front and centre, goods and chattels, guys and dolls, hail and farewell, hard and fast, here and now, here and there, high to low, hither and yon, a hug and a kiss, hunger and thirst, itchy and scratchy, ladies and gents, man and wife, moms and dads, near and far, nooks and crannies, now and then, richer and poorer, (in) sickness and (in) health, short but sweet, show and tell, sin and redemption, song and dance, to and fro, twist and shout.

EVEN MORE BINOMIALS: Our patter-songs about rhyming binomials and alliterative binomials list dozens more examples of these compelling forms. Enjoy!

“Rhyming Binomials — part #1 (A to L)”, January 22 (“The Elements” — Tom Lehrer, 1959)
“Rhyming Binomials — part #2” (M to Z)”, January 24 (“The Elements” — Tom Lehrer, 1959)
“Alliterative Binomials — part #1 (A to K)”, January 26 (“The Elements” — Tom Lehrer, 1959)
“Alliterative Binomials — part #2 (L to Z)”, February 9 (“The Elements” — Tom Lehrer, 1959)

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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. (Readers are advised, however, that advancing age and other factors have resulted in the gradual decline of 'daily' blog offerings to ten times per month). 

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. 

DEFINING OPINIONS, sextet #7

    This post is a continuation of 'DEFINING OPINIONS', as posted on this blog on July 15, 2020 (sextet#1), July 15, 2021 (sextet#2), July 15, 2022 (sextet#3), July 15, 2023 (sextet#4), July 15, 2024 (sextet#5), and July 15, 2025 (sextet#6).

previous poetic posts (note that captions are available for poems displayed on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" after 2025).

(sextet#1): academically, birdlife, boring, crepuscular, cruddy, decompose. 

(sextet#2): diaphoretic, envision, expertise, fester, hamuli, haunch.

(sextet#3): heinous, hoarding, hod, holdout, hole#1, hole#2

(sextet#4): holler, hollow, homogenized milk, hone, honey, honorifics.

(sextet#5): hooey, hoot, hopeful, hormones, hors d'oeuvres, hose.

(sextet#6): hostility, hot, hourly, housewife, humorless, inveigle.

CURRENT CONTENTS (sextet#7):
Limerick
Multiple myeloma
Post-mortem exam
Smut

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

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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.

NATIONAL (and multinational) Verse

CURRENT CONTENTS: (note that captions are available for poems displayed on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" after 2025).
Armenia

Greenland

Haiti

la Francophonie

Iceland

Panama (Canal Zone)

Canada (3 stanzas, a 'brief saga')

France (3 stanzas, a 'brief saga')

America (USA - 3 stanzas, a 'brief saga') 

Authors' Note:

neurasthenia: obsolete term from psychiatry, implying general debility attributed to exhaustion of the nervous system, as discussed here

Armenia, the first country in the world to adopt Christianity, has had disputes with its neighbors for most of its existence. The revered Mt. Ararat is now located geopolitically in Turkey, but is still considered a national symbol of Armenia, and dominates the view from the Armenian capital of Yerevan. Armenia's borders to the east and west currently remain closed owing to hostile relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Authors' Note: This verse, along with Canal Zone (to follow) and fifty-first (preceding) constitutes a trilogy of diplomatic nonsense.

As of 2024, Greenland, with population of 56,000, is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Authors' Note: The plight of Haiti, and some of its earlier history, are described in an OEDILF verse by speedysnail  

Authors' Note: Late in 2024, the incumbent US president turned his attention from Canada, a friendly neighbour that he had threatened with massive tariffs, dangling the possibility of a sort of "Anschluss".

His sudden announcement that "excessive" shipping fees across the Panama Canal were a matter of vital national US interest was accompanied by threats to retake control of the Canal Zone, a region that had been under sole Panamanian control since 1979.

The author of the above poem in his prior work acclaim had discussed the role of President Theodore Roosevelt (T.R.) in construction of the Panama Canal, therein revealing the neo-palindrome A man, a plan, if final — Panama.

(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.)

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

(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.) 

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.

Reprehensible MODERN HISTORY: second set of unpleasantries

 

This blogpost is a collection of brief poems tainted with negative view of modern developments.   This post represents material from our first emanation on this topic, "reprehensible modern history",  part #1 (July 5, 2025). 

previous poetic postings (note that captions are available for poems displayed on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" after 2025).

(first set of unpleasantries): cantankerous leaders, clannishness. confederate states, Crimean war, democracy (18th C version), Emperor of Elba.

CURRENT CONTENTS (#2):

Franco-German (Cannes of Worms)

Italo-Turkish war

Sheep in Britain

Submarine warfare (Charleston SC)

Broken Arrow (3 stanzas, a 'brief saga')

Authors' Note:

nachbarlich (NAKH-bahr-likh): neighborly 

l'après-guerre (la-preh-GAYR): period immediately after the Second World War in France, approximately 1945-1948

Cannes (KAN): French town on the Côte d'Azur, famous for its luxury hotels and villas, and for its international film festival

Worms (VORMZ): German town (sometimes pronounced by anglophones as WUHRMZ) of about the same size as Cannes and Limerick, famed for its production of liebfraumilch 

Authors' Note: The Italo-Turkish War, also known as the Turco-Italian War, 1911–1912, was among the neo-colonial adventures pushed by the European powers (Britain, France, Italy, etc.) who took advantage of the decline of Ottoman Turkey just before the outbreak of the First World War. The territories conquered by the Italians (most of current-day Libya and also the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea) remained under their control through the Second World War, with Mussolini's National Fascist party in power in the Kingdom of Italy for most of this period (1922–1943).

The treaty to end the conflict was named after the resort facility in Lausanne, Switzerland at which it was signed by the belligerents, becoming known as the Treaty of Ouchy (oo-SHEE).

SHEEP IN BRITAIN

'Til the 17th C, Britons reap

Productivity based in their sheep.

And then factories and mining

Brought about redefining. 

But the cost to change cloth isn't cheap.

Giorgio Coniglio. 

SUBMARINE WARFARE - didactic material

Charleston, South Carolina played a disproportionate role in the development and deployment of submarines in warfare. 

You can read all about this in three informative blogposts on our blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (here, here, and here), or you could enjoy a song about nuclear submarines during the Cold War by clicking HERE.  

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

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

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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.

WATERFOWL, seventh flocking

 

    This post is a continuation of a collection of verses about WATERFOWL' as posted on this blog on June 10, 2020 (flocking#1), June 10, 2021 (flocking#2), June 10, 2022 (flocking#3), June 10, 2023 (flocking#4), June 10, 2024 (flocking#5), and June 10, 2025 (flocking#6).

previous poetic posts

(flocking#1): American white ibis, anhinga, awkward great auk, birder, black-capped night heron, black skimmer. 

(flocking#2): brown pelican (Caribbean), brown pelican (revisited), Canada goose, double-crested cormorant, Egyptian goose, feral ducks. 

(flocking#3): flightless seabirds, gallinule (marsh hen), great blue heron, great egret, habitat, hooded merganser.

(flocking#4): juvenile night heron, laughing gull, little blue heron, loon, mallard duck, muscovy duck. 

(flocking#5): mute swan, oystercatcher, the "pelicatessen", pescatarian, roseate spoonbill, ruddy turnstone. 

(flocking#6): seabird feeders, snow goose, snowy egret, tricolored hern, trumpeter swan.

CURRENT CONTENTS (flocking#7):
Willets
Wood ducks
Wood storks
Yellow-crowned night herons
A loon's life (3 verses, a 'brief saga')
Cormorant rookery (3 verses, a 'brief saga')

   

Bird-watchers, academic ornithologists, wordplay enthusiasts, wildlife photographers, Giorgio's relatives, and just everyday folks have united in their demand for still more illustrated doggerel on related topics!

For poems about landbirds and birds in general birdlife, please proceed to a series of posts on 'Birdlife' 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.