NOV (2020), submitted palindromes #11

 

TOURISTS' PALINDROMIC GUIDE: The Americas #4

WORDPLAY post #192
Preview of this fall's offerings. Target date: November 10.
This post is a continuation of...
 Tourists' Palindromic Guide: The Americas #1
 Tourists' Palindromic Guide: The Americas #2
 Tourists' Palindromic Guide: The Americas #3

SATIRE COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym) and Dr. GH, 2018. 

WORDPLAY LINK: Panels showing palindromic phrases derived from geography of the Americas were originally displayed on Wordplay posts on this blog during the interval from 2018 to February 2019; the current examples have been developed since that time. Geographically focused concoctions are among the many palindromic treasures honored and displayed on this site. Check out the list of entries for "The Palindrome Suite". 

SONGLINK:  Some readers will be delighted (others will continue to groan) at our collection of songs based on palindromic phrases -- click the link to the initial blogpost in this series to make these links available as well.

Still want more palindromic fun? Click HERE for 'concluding remarks' about New-World and Old-World palindromes.

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.

Grandpa Greg's Advanced Grammar: BINOMIAL EXPRESSIONS, part #1

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

CURRENT CONTENTS:

Hale and hearty 

Hug and kiss

Food and drink 

First and last

Sin and redemption

Down and out

Betwixt and between

Hem and haw,

plus many others that play a supporting role in the verses

(check the link below for a follow-up series)

Authors' Note:  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 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 near and dear, or haste makes waste.

 Authors' Note: Binomial expressions combine two paired elements in a fixed order. Lists of these phrases show that when the two genders are in question, males almost always come first. This bias is shown in dozens of idioms such as boys and girls, lords and ladies, men and women, brother and sister, kings and queens, Jack and Jill, etc.

The few notable exceptions highlight a gender-constrained role for women, including belles and beaus, bride and groom, and moms and dads.

Gender-bias in language is also discussed in another verse by the authors. Click HERE. 

Authors' Note: The forty-fifth US president and his advisors seem to have come up with a scare tactic, telling voters that waves of Central American refugees appearing on the southern US border were comprised of potential rapists and drug-dealers. The 'redemption' referred to here is entry into the safe refuge of the United States.   

For binomial expressions, such as sin and redemption, there is (in normal times) a mandatory, irreversible order of the two linguistic elements.

Authors' Note:   The concept of fossil words derives from the fact that dozens of obsolete and obscure words, e.g. betwixt, retain currency only as a part of idioms whose use has continued into modern times. The final line of the verse refers to beck and call, goods and chattels, and hither and yon.

 

 More examples of fossil words and phrases are given in the verse hem and haw.

Authors' Note:   The astute reader might realize that "whence, wherefore and whither" (like "snug as a bug in a rug") is a TRInomial phrase, a less common entity.  

For more verses about  "Binomial Expressions", please proceed to part #2 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.

 

TORONT-OASES (verses about sites and sights in Toronto)

CURRENT CONTENTS

Humber Bay

Toronto ravines

Riverdale Farm

Floating Islands (Brickworks)

Authors' Note:  Glacial can be pronounced with either 2 or 3 syllables. Here, the word has the meaning of 'produced by, or related to a glacier’. 

  Geologists tell us that during the Wisconsin glaciation, the ice-sheet scooped out soft rock and pushed the piled-up debris, sand and gravel, southward towards Lake Iroquois, the precursor of Lake Ontario. Twelve thousand years ago, with the ending of the ice-age, meltwater from the Laurentide Glacier eroded the channels that became the basis of Toronto's system of ravines.

To learn more about Toronto Ravines, see the exciting three  posts entitled "Hikes, Bikes and Likes: TORONTO RAVINES" #1, #2, and #3.

Related 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.

Verse for HOLIDAYS and CELEBRATIONS

Authors' Note:  Poinsettia is now the common name by which this seasonal plant is known around the world.

  Joel Poinsett, South Carolinian physician and amateur botanist, served as the first US ambassador (a position designated as minister) to Mexico. In the 1820s, he sent home to his greenhouses samples of Euphorbia pulcherrima (member of the spurge family), locally known as flor de nochebuena (Christmas Eve), linked to the Hispanic nativity celebration. 

  Distribution of the poinsettia in the US was enhanced by development of cultivars with a more lush profusion of the colored bracts, and recently, by variants in other appealing colors. Today, a single nursery in Texas accounts for 70% of American sales, and half of all global sales of this decorative seasonal specialty.

  Incidentally, although the plant is assumed by many to be toxic, that possibility appears based on an incorrect original report, unsupported by other evidence.

 

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

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: (updated June 2024)

To resume 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 in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of June 2024, there are over 1500 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on "Edifying Nonsense" in topic-based collections.) The "Daily" format has the advantage of including Giorgio's photo-collages, song-lyrics and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.