FINAL EDITORIAL NOTICE

 

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume 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 December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Readers will likely have read the notice that as of July  2025, "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" will be converted to archive-mode, i.e. some polishing of presented posts will go on in the background, but there will generally be no brand-new material presented.  

Regrettably, for the same reasons, further regular posting of new material on the current topic-based blog will also be drawing to a close , with sporadic exceptions. There will be some polishing and rearranging going on in the background (we have a few 'postholes' to fill in). Hence, it may still be worth your while to return and explore, to satisfy your yearning for funky humor and erudition. Thanks for your indulgence!

As time goes on, our creative impulses will be directed primarily at the song-lyric blog "Silly Songs and Satire". It already offers about 100 songs with parody-lyrics, and accompanying chord suggestions for stringed instruments such as ukulele. 

See y'all there! 

American Satire: CABINET CONFIRMATION

CURRENT CONTENTS

a. Director of D.O.G.E.? Trade Sheriff?

b. Attorney-General

c. Secretary of Defense

d. Secretary of Health and Human Services

e. FBI Director

f. Director of National Intelligence

g. Director of OMB (Office of Management and Budget). 

h. Secretary of Education

 Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed at Wikipedia HERE; he had no role in government until the ad hoc formation of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Embargos so grab me is found in most lists of classic palindromes. A newer entry, Elon, olé !, is suggested, but unfortunately could not be worked into the above verse.

Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed on Wikipedia HERE.

The Feed-At-The-Trough Law is a 'rule' of natural law, by which those routinely rewarded have boundless will to please those who feed them; in the political arena, it would normally account for the approval of almost any nominee, but in this case, even that line was crossed.

The detailed story of a flawed appointee for leadership of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), i.e. the Attorney General, is presented at OEDILF here.

Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed on Wikipedia HERE.

 Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed HERE.

Sure! Despite the current emphasis on 'efficiency', let's review yet again whether the long-disproven possibility that vaccines cause autism and other major diseases. 

 Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed HERE.

"Government Gangsters" is a 2023 book by Kash Patel about the perceived deep state in US politics; the same author produced a children's picture book entitled "The Plot Against the King" (the protagonist is King Donald).

Bill Barr (Republican) and Merrick Garland (Democrat) were Attorneys General in the 2017 and 2021 administrations respectively.

Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed HERE.

Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed HERE.

Authors' Note: The particular nominee we had in mind is discussed HERE.

A recent New York Times article was subtitled, "Linda McMahon, whose résumé mainly rests on running World Wrestling Entertainment, has faced questions for years over whether she is suitable for important education posts."

The president, who employed her in his first term as director of the Small Business Administration, nominated her in 2024 as Secretary of Education, but has repeatedly indicated that he would like to eventually eliminate the Department.

The 8 nominations specified above trumpet the belief that, to some,  loyalty may be a more important virtue than experience or expertise. This mistaken belief has been discussed here in an earlier verse.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume 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 December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.

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O Canada! STAND on GUARD (D.T.)

 These verses, previously languishing in incomplete form, were brought to fruition in late January 2025. We had the good fortune to find a suitable software-space to stick this assemblage, before our blog closed down at the end of 2024, so please excuse the minor anachronism involved in the posting on this early date (some of the ideas herein were only expressed after the US presidential inauguration on January 20, 2025). 

CURRENT CONTENTS
Fifty-first state
Canadian bacon 
Inadmissible
Dual citizenship
Honoured
Tariff terror

Authors' Note:  The Canadian author regrets the unapologetic tone of this diatribe (see borrow). He does point out, however, that the verse constitutes a trio of timely diplomatic nonsense along with Panama Canal Zone and Greenland.

Authors' Note: 

Authors' Note:  In Canada, a longstanding rule decrees a candidate for entry (visitor or immigrant) "inadmissible" if they have a criminal record elsewhere.  Over 30 other countries have such rules, although generally less harsh and better specified, dependent on length of incarceration, etc. The European Union ('Schengen-countries') will activate new regulations in mid-2025, likely more severe than previous versions. The government of Italy undertakes policing functions for the small, enclosed, but otherwise independent Vatican City.

Incidentally,  the current US President, Joe Biden, had been scheduled to visit Pope Francis in Rome on January 11th to present him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The visit was postponed due to the California wildfires. 

Authors' Note: The reasons are not clear, but in Canada, compared to the US, a much smaller proportion of place-names are copies of names used geographically in the 'Old World'. The same also seems to be true for Australia and New Zealand. Just saying.

In the US, any proposed name-change would have to be reviewed by protocols of the Board of Geographic Names.

Mount Denali, at 6190m (20,310 feet), the loftiest peak in the United States, is discussed at OEDILF by SheilaB.

And, just in case you wanted to know for comparison, the loftiest peak in Canada is Mount Logan, at 5960m (19,550 feet).     

Authors' Note: In the US recently, there has been a concerted effort to pin many of society's putative ills on immigrants. In Canada, on the other hand, the significant portion of citizens who hold two passports is honoured. Commonly, through training programs and other personal initiatives (e.g., marriage), the US is the second country involved.

As a feature left over from earlier times, when there were fewer global immigrants, the expression dual citizen, or even more curtly dual, is assumed by Canadians to imply, failing further specification, a person who holds citizenship in both the US and Canada.

The verb subdue, and its derivatives seem to derive from a different linguistic root.

Authors' Note: 

The above verse gives an apocryphal Canadian response to tongue-in-cheek proposals made in January 2025 for the liberal-leaning New England states to secede from the US.

Readers might also enjoy the three sets of verses collected under the rubric "Canadiana". Start by clicking HERE. 

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume 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 December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.

Unprecedented doggerel: PRESIDENTIAL PALINKUs

CURRENT CONTENTS
Politics
Global warming
45th prez #1
45th prez #2
45th prez #3
45th prez #4
45th prez #5
45th prez #6
45th prez #7

Click below for collections of posted palinkus, as available uniquely on our blogs (most recently for the period of January to August 2024).

2024:

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

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As of July 2025, there are 2000 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.

TARGETED PALINDROMES I to K (the showcase continues)

Editors' Note: Fans of palindromes might note that a lengthy series of posts entitled "Submitted Palindromes" has disappeared from this blog. They might be delighted to disover that this change is only administrative -- the 'missing' blogposts, 59 in all, have been transferred to "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", and can be found HERE.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume 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 December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.

 

The Adventures of Leslie Moore, Linguist -- SUFFIXES

CURRENT CONTENTS

meanINGFULLY

helpFULLY

feckLESSNESS

categorICALLY

atoneLESSNESS

loveLINESS

gallINGLY

loneLINESS

youthFULNESS

(linguistICALLY  -- 4 stanzas, a 'brief saga')

Authors' Note: The Yiddish loanword bupkes literally means "beans", but is figuratively applied to items or concepts that are worthless.

Authors' Note: For more than a decade, the author of this verse has routinely taken a bedtime dose of alginate, a seaweed-derived product useful as an adjunct in the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux.

Authors' Note: Leslie Moore is an academic linguist who has acted as an inspirational muse in almost a dozen of Giorgio's recent verses. Her personal lifestyle choice of rejecting the world of IT has gotten her into some difficulty, bringing accusations from her colleagues of incompetence.

Authors' Note:  Until this minute, Giorgio had apparently not even heard of Leslie's cousin Vic.

Authors' Note: Readers are reminded of the key role of the word sorry in the Canadian vocabulary.

Authors' Note: The dove is often used a symbol of peace or pacifism; contrarily, the hawk is used as a symbol of those with a propensity for war or violence.

"An iron fist (hand) in a velvet glove" is a well-known idiom portraying hawks who hide behind a more dove-like appearance or demeanour.

(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.) 

Editors' Note: Leslie has asked us to point our readers to  earlier verses contributed by one of her mentors, "clannishlessness" and "capaciousness".

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume 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 December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.

The Impossible Dream: CAPTAIN R's RHOTIC MISSION

CURRENT CONTENTS 

Quixotic Dream
Non-rhotic vs Rhotic Speech 
Rhotic-Poet School
Intrusive Rs

 

Authors' Note: "Captain R" is a muse who appears episodically in the ' dreams of certain Canadian poets. R. is the authors' abbreviation for rhotic (ROA-tik) dialects in English, i.e. those that honour R-sounds as they are written. The Captain, who clearly has been influenced by the nearby letter "q" as in Don Quixote, and wears a tight-fitting shirt emblazoned with a large "R", has inspired a quest that culminated in the other verses in this collection. 

Quixotic, BTW, is used to describe ideas and actions that are foolishly impractical and romantic.

Authors' Note: The above verse represents a companion piece to the following one, rhotic-poet school  ('articulate' as it originally appeared on OEDILF) ; the author is pleased to declare that both submissions can be read with either a rhotic or non-rhotic accent.

Readers who find use of the word "rhoticity" pedantic, are advised to substitute "rotisserie".

Authors' Note:

otic: pertaining to the ear, or to hearing, as in the medical specialty oto-laryngology (ENT)

The author is pleased to explain that this verse can be read with either a rhotic or non-rhotic accent. In fact, it is highly recommended that each reader try to recite it aloud both ways.

Poor, sure, more is a trio of words often used for rhyming in poetic or song-lyric lines (a random example: I'd like to ensure / That our love will bring more). Non-rhotic speakers apparently find that these words rhyme as indicated in the phonetic renderings paw, shaw, maw. To rhotic ears, however, the partial rhyming of 'sure' and 'more' sounds as amateurish as pairing 'time' and 'fine'.

With occasional exceptions, native-born and -schooled Canadians using English are rhotic speakers, their Rs being fully sounded, even after vowels. However, we have welcomed to our shores large numbers of immigrants from around the globe who have brought their non-rhotic dialects. Their speech pattern is rendered roughly by changing all the relevant Rs to Hs, e.g. 'hard' == > 'hahd'; 'exhort == > 'exhoht'

Apparently, expert linguists have established that English was spoken only rhotically until the time of Shakespeare. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the use of non-rhotic speech, with the loss of 'post-vocalic R', spread until it became the dominant speech pattern in most of England, the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, Australia and several other English colonies.

Authors' Note:

celler (CHEH-ler): a large stringed instrument, imaginatively pronounced with an intrusive R; often accompanied by the pianeR, and, in the orchestreR, by the violeR, oboeR, tubeR, and piccoleR

Readers may have to stretch their credulity to accept that a ring of thieves would bring large musical instruments like cellos, stolen elsewhere, to be dumped on the UK market.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was satirized in the press as "Laura Norder" as she often reiterated the mantra "Law and Order", voiced with an intrusive R, as law-R an' order. This element of speech, frequently used by non-rhotic speakers of British and of southern hemisphere English, is likely the most common form of epenthesis, the adding of unrelated letters to ease pronunciation. Americans are not immune to this linguistic peculiarity, as witnessed by the 1950s books and movie about the Texan boy-and-his-dog "Old Yeller".

GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WEB-EXPLORERS: 

To resume 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 December 2024. 

As of December 2024, there are 1800 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 their key elements are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections, such as this one. 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.