Lyrics for Singable Patter-Satire: Tom Lehrer Sings "ALLITERATIVE BINOMIALS, #1"

PARODY SONG-LYRICS

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 second 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. 

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  a recently revised discussion of binomials, click here; there is also a post that honors our earlier exploration of these intriguing expressions 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. But note that as it is a 'private blog' you will need to arrange access, if you don't already have it. Leave a comment on this post if you want to access the version with chord-charts and helpful performing suggestions. 

For house and home, and king and country, love or leave it, bull or bear

And wild and woolly, weeping wailing, whys and wherefores, wash and wear

There’s lend and lease, lewd and lascivious, longitude and latitude

And odds and evens, wax and wane, and hoot and holler, crass and crude.

There’s form and function, farm and factory, and fling and flirta-ation

And feast or famine, rhyme and reason, rest and relaxa-ation 

There’s rough and ready, rags to riches, rock and roll, down and dirty

And dine and dash, and cheque or cash, and foppery and frippery.

There's live and learn, last but not least, and lemon lime, and life and limb

Safe and secure, and search and seizure, signs and symptoms, sink or swim

And sweet and sour, and Stars and Stripes, and sticks and stones, and sights and sounds

And hale and hearty, hot and heavy, birds and bees, and horse and hounds. 

There’s flora fauna, fun and frolic, fin and fur, forgive forget

Over and out, and tots and toddlers, tit for tat, restore reset 

And Jew and Gentile, dribs and drabs, naughty or nice, and juke and jive

And one and only, publish perish, bed and breakfast, drink and drive.

There’s poke and prod, and pen and paper, post and pillar, pig in poke

And rant and rave, and bread and butter, mix and match, and jeer and joke

Hell or high water, rod and reel, gruff grim, footloose and fancy-free,

Deny his due to devil, dos and don'ts, and also deep blue sea.

Nieces and nephews, peas in pod, kit and caboodle, meek and mild

And ghosts and goblins, trick or treat, witches and warlocks, wet and wild

And trials and tribulation, tried and true , thick thin, and tic-tac-toe

And cute and cuddly, fair or foul, and spick and span, and friend or foe.

Note: A second collection of amusing and instructive phrases has been posted  as "More Alliterative Binomials #2".

HOT LINKS to WORD-PAIR PARODY LYRICS,

here on the wordplay-poetry-lyrics blog "Edifying Nonsense" ...

Pairs

Binomials (didactic discussion)

Alliterative Binomials, part #1 

Alliterative Binomials, part #2

Rhyming Binomials, A to L

Rhyming Binomials, M to Z

Reduplications - Lesson

Reduplications - Lexicon A to K

Reduplications - Lexicon L to Z

Legal Doublets .

If you want to resume daily titillations on our 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 week in the years 2020 and 2021. (There are now almost 700 daily entries on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.)

Edification about Word-Pairs: "The BINOMIALS", A Linguistic Lesson

 EDIFICATION about  WORDPLAY

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

LESSON COMPOSED: Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, 2015. This explanation is required for the reader to understand the material on Word-Pairs that underlies the second through fifth song in the collection of 9 parodies.

BINOMIALS: We are dealing here with 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 on an earlier post (January 5, 2017), click here; that post also honours 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. But note that as it is a 'private blog' you will need to arrange access, if you don't already have it. Leave a comment on this post if you want to access the version with chord-charts and helpful performing suggestions. 

loonie and toonie: rhyming coins

#1

#2

#3

 

#4

#5

#6

#7

AND, A TRIBUTE TO BINOMIALS IN POETRY

A binomial (clichéd) expression:
Hale and hearty — our topic this session,
Gives good grades for your health,
And good outcomes? A wealth
(Just be sure to avoid indiscretion).

You find 'hale' a hard challenge to spell?
Time has come to say, "Hail and Farewell".
Hide and seek, hard and fast,
Here and now (not the past).
Show and tell, both in Heaven and Hell.

A binomial pair, phrase, or expression, is a language element consisting of a pair of words that are used in a fixed order as an idiom. The two members of the pair are the same part of speech, are semantically related, often near-synonyms or antonyms, and are most commonly joined by 'and', or 'or'; they often play a role as clichés. The term irreversible binomial was presumably coined and extensively discussed by American philologist Yakov Malkiel in 1954. The most catchy of these phrases are alliterative, as 'hale and hearty', or rhyming, as in 'health and wealth' or 'haste makes waste'.

Ethics maven, a loyal supporter,
Advised Donald, "Don't toy with fixed order:
First there's sin, then redemption;
If we make an exemption,
They'll let drug dealers in 'cross the border."

For binomial expressions, such as Sin and redemption, there is a mandatory order of the two linguistic elements.

According to media reports, during Donald Trump's term in office, particularly towards its end, there was discussion of the use of a 'pre-emptive' pardon to redeem the president's close associates, his family, and even the President himself.

Some archaic words, pair-wise, take part,
Signed and sealed in our lyrical art,
Like betwixt and between,
Goods and chattels are seen,
Hook or crook, tit for tat, ... just to start.

Penny-wise and pound-foolish — old shopper:
Hue and cry, to and fro, prince and pauper;
Spick and span, spit and polish,
Hem and haw, beck and call-ish —
You'll find lo and behold prim and proper.

This verse serves as a companion-piece to binomial expressions.

HOT LINKS to WORD-PAIR PARODY LYRICS,

here on the wordplay-poetry-lyrics blog "Edifying Nonsense" ...

Pairs

Binomials (didactic discussion)

Alliterative Binomials, part #1 

Alliterative Binomials, part #2

Rhyming Binomials, A to L

Rhyming Binomials, M to Z

Reduplications - Lesson

Reduplications - Lexicon A to K

Reduplications - Lexicon L to Z

Legal Doublets .

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 

To resume daily titillations on our 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 2022, there are 1000 entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.) 

Progress in Poetry: The SIX-LINED HALF-LIMERICK

Let's start with an example ...

 

SIX-VERSE SAGA:

 A MAN CONFRONTS THE PAST 

 

.   

DEATH and the AFTERLIFE #1

Authors' Note:   Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is the major cause of sudden otherwise-unexplained death.  This emergency demands chest compression as well as other resuscitative maneuvers by trained lay standers-by, ambulance workers and emergency room staff. Unfortunately, the ultimate success rate of such resuscitative measures in this setting remains quite low. 

Authors' Note: In hockey, an assist is recognition awarded to a player who passes the puck to the goal-scorer at a key point in play. A sudden death system for resolving the winner in games tied at the end of regulation play has generally been used in organized hockey since its inception. The (goal) crease is an area demarcated by colored ice directly in front of the goal line where the goalie (goalkeeper) is not to be interfered with by attackers.

Although professional hockey has been the undisputed domain of males, more and more women are participating in Canada's national sport as amateurs and international competitors.

Authors' Note: You may have gathered that the editors think that Heaven is a bureaucracy-ridden place. So, of course, as a resident there you may  have to fill out a lot of documentation to obtain permission to import Earthworms and related paraphernalia.

 

Authors' Note: My partner's sweet apple pie is 'to die for', and so is the strawberry pie pictured above..

The editors have been besieged with requests for more poems on this topic, so you can proceed, if you like, to "Death and the Afterlife #2" by clicking HERE.

GENERAL DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 

To resume daily titillations on our 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 February 2023, there are 1100 entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.)