Wordsmith.org
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Sparteye's Game II - 01/11/13 11:02 PM
(continued from HERE)

1200-plus posts in a thread
makes the Internet slow down to Dead . (if you don't have a high-speed connection)
...so I've made it continue
...in this shortened venue.
We now proceed Full Steam Ahead.

The last words were (wait a minute, I'll go find out...)

Edit: Got 'em:
NATURALISM - NAVAL

This ain't a naturalism.
A schism or even a prism,
Where meaning's unstable.
Knowledge is naval,
It's all just a paralogism.

STEAM -SLOW (words got from wofa's post above - no dictionary around)
A farmer from south of Nantucket
Kept his cream in a large wooden bucket
His milking was slow
But his cheeks all aglow
And the steam from his nostrils said “ferget about it!”

Gazebo --- Geiger
Wonderful Mav...
A gazebo set up on the Eiger
And be-striped black and tan like a tiger
Would go over the edge -
Pushed right off of the ledge
By a quark too minute for a Geiger.

GLANCE - GLOSS
Blighted love.

As I gave her a looong second glance
My thoughts turned, once more, to romance.
Will it make her cross
If I taste her lip-gloss?
I soon found I hadn’t a chance.

COSTAL - COUCHANT
The hot gardening lass at the dance
Could tell with a cursory glance
That the man with the gloss
Of a hip mobster boss
Would soon try to get into her plants.

BREVET – BRIGHT
Blast! You beat me! And I can't edit my post. Love this software.
Now, now, boys, no need to fight over li'l old me! blush
Yes, Peter - I've also found that I can't edit. Goodness nows what's up.
Anyway, i'm glad that you sent yours in - it's a cracker!

And the others now have a choice of four words to use - Anyone fancy using all four? laugh
That is odd ... I have no trouble editing.
Hmmm. Very strange. I was able to open the last one with 'edit', but I have not been able to do so with any for the past few days. Maybe it was a temporary glitch.
Lying couchant in a hostel,
Nursing a pain intercostal,
A soldier in the fight,
Wasn't feelin too bright,
He'd shoved a brevet up a nostril.

Ooops. Sorry about that.
Tricked by brevet to pat the couchant lion on the head
Young Kim (not so bright) rubbed the lion's belly instead
The lion had rolled over (to put it blountly)
And said with his costals, "I sure am hungry"
(my last line is too gory; the last word rhymed with "dead")



Nothing is as boring as side games such as these. It really dulls the mind and brings on the yawn. The next batch/s of words is/are thrown open to those who will to create them or not - it does not matter to me. If it is my turn to create the words tell me, and i will create them. I prefer to play the poetry and challenge the mind, and not play cute personality based games and challenge other people's nastiness.
I'm glad this is said
it's been long in my head
a limerick is nice
only once maybe twice
butsnot for an eternal thread

with all due respect to you all

sleep
Thanks girls, for your kind and thoughtful opinions.
But remember; you doesn't have to play. laugh
wink
I know jenny jennie and I don't. Just felt like expressing my agreement with a fellow board member's opinion. smile
I don't either, usually. Thanks Bran. Much appreciate it. smile
BREVET - BRIGHT

A mere brevet poet am I,
And though others would pass this thread by,
I’ll do such as I might
To keep the flame bright -
Here’s two words so the thread shall not die

INCULCATE - INDENT
I'm not sure what your problem(s) is/are. A limerick is a structure, not a cultural statement. It requires you to think through the rhymes while, at the same time, trying to make some sense and include the set words (in this case). It is a five-line poem. The content can be subtle and poetic or it can be a linguistic sledgehammer. As in all poetry. Years ago we used to play all kinds of poetry games here. This was one of the really fun ones.

I think I've made a mistake coming back. Easily rectified.
As always, CapK, these plays suit some and not others. Those of us who enjoy get on with it and acknowlege that the others wish to stay away. Avy and Branny have stated their position . That's OK, at least we know why they don't take part, but the rest of us get onwith it and enjoy the contributions of non-participants to this thread in their valuable contributions on other ones.
I can't see that there is any problem, here!
Ye cannot please all the people all of the time,
and some, never.

I try writing the limericks, but am not very good.
But I love reading them.

Donna' let the miserables drive ye away.
I tried to inculcate each day
In my creditors, "Yes, I will pay."
Now my assets are spent
and my purse sides indent.
[Shrug.] My attitude: "Diem? Carpe!"

DETERMINATOR – DEVIL
If I've understood correctly (and I'm not sure I have), we're looking at two different issues here. I think, Avy, that your objection is not to limericks, but to maliciousness, venom, personal attacks, and I have no argument with you there. Bran, I'm not sure if your objection is to having a steady diet of limericks in this particular thread, or having them anywhere in the forum. Several of us, at least, thoroughly enjoy what we perceive as an invigorating challenge, and find the sharing of (perhaps alleged) wit stimulating. We can separate the threads, if you like, but I certainly have no desire to stop sharing limericks, nor do I object to anyone using any other form, whether sentence or sonnet, to keep Sparteye's Game alive and lively. Please set me straight if I'm off course here, PM if you prefer.
From my point of view, Peter, you hit the nail on the head.
Me.three.
Me, four* (with an asterisk)

* I just like to be different. blush
The Devil was my Daddy, a blight on Earth's green crust
Then one day he did a kindness; I only felt disgust
What brought my strange determinator
To his kind act? (I understood later)
Forsooth: If you can't trust the Devil who can you trust?

FARD - FASCINATE
Yes, Peter! You're right. That's what my objection is. The board used to be about the discussions and the topics and the games not about "rubbing people the wrong way subtly or overtly." Do stay*, Cap K. Take a break - it helps; or post less that also helps.

Edit: *only because the intelligent people still outnumber the ...umm... [add euphemism] ones.
Er, Ivy...not to mingle in your personal affairs, but don't you think your well-meant advice to Capt K should be given privately? I know that you "intelligent people" doesn't want to offend " the ...umm... [add euphemism] ones".

Of course not. smile
Originally Posted By: Avy
Yes, Peter! You're right. That's what my objection is. The board used to be about the discussions and the topics and the games not about "rubbing people the wrong way subtly or overtly." Do stay*, Cap K. Take a break - it helps; or post less that also helps.

Edit: *only because the intelligent people still outnumber the ...umm... [add euphemism] ones.





Sounds like a judgment call. Who determines who is and who is
not ....umm....[add euphemism] intelligent?

"Fard"? Is this the Sparteye's Game thread or the Hogwash thread ? ;-)

I know it's exceedingly hard
To fascinate fans of the Bard
...But if one day you wake up
...With much too much makeup
You haven't read well, and you're fard.

(Yes, I know, it's great stretch. But as Winnie-the-Pooh says, "It isn't brains, because You-know-why, Rabbit, but it comes to me sometimes...)

CAPUCIN -- CATERWAUL
Way down south in old Alabamee
The zealots dispute Darwin’s theory
But their caterwaul calls
Sounds like capucin balls
In reason’s sweet mangle – so cheery!

Transept - - - Translate
Speaking as a southern Southerner I would like to say that I am sorely offended by Maverick's post. Damnit Maverick, the affectionnate of Alabama is not Alabamee it's Alabammy, like in Mammy, like in Al Jolson, like in proper upbringing.

How easy you forget: Charles Darwin was vindicated of all his heresies in the Tennessee monkey trial. But in compromise the judge let us keep on speaking in tongues and handling our snakes.

You're right of course, Miss jj, how could I so forget mahownsef? Please accept the humble apologies of someone writing, in a Forn Tung, with more haste to join the Bridge table than was seemly, decent and proper by the fine sensibilities you embody. smile
Well, a remorseful man does touch my heart...

Yes, Mister Maverick (may I call you "Mav")
I will forgive you, Mav, but only if you stop playing that childish game you call Bridge and immediately begin growing a beard to cover your weak chin so you'll look more like General Stonewall Jackson.

You know what, dear Mav?
I think that this is the begining of a beautiful friendship.
Ah well, forget it. It's allright as it always will be. Wish you all a good day and a happy night.
No we doesn't, Jenny Jenny.

No, I don't decide, but IMO you're intelligent Luke. Call me judgemental.
To Bran
If you don't like the thread, start your own instead of
policing the one that exists with your disdain. Some like
limericks, if you don't, go elsewhere, you do have a choice.
For the second or third time at least, obviously you visit
the thread posting anagrams without contributing any: if the anagrams are so trite, why don't you start
your own thread where everything will measure up to your own
standards, instead of policing the other threads and constantly
putting them down. We have a good time, and poof! you appear.
Again I ask you, who made you the police patrol?
Originally Posted By: Avy
No we doesn't, Jenny Jenny.

No, I don't decide, but IMO you're intelligent Luke. Call me judgemental.



I don't speak textese, so your comment is lost on me: IMO?
IMO - In My Opinion
Thanks Buff, now it makes sense.

Sorry if I offended you Avy. The problem with computers
we cannot see the people, and don't know how to take comments
sometimes with body language apparent.
Thanks Luke, your comments are always very edifying. Never mind this little argument, scrabble on and be happy!
Your sardonic and cynical comments are so refreshing.
Keep your badge shiny.

When did this Camelot turn into a boxing match?

You're right. Now can we all declare victory and withdraw?

I'll offer to have the last word, so no one loses face.
while we're all being hypercritical, you might want to consider this:

limerick - a form of comic verse consisting of five anapestic lines of which the first, second, and fifth have three metrical feet and rhyme together and the third and fourth have two metrical feet and rhyme together; that is aabba

IMHO, the game was much more challenging, and for that matter, much more fun when the form was followed; but that would require counting sylLAbles, or sumptin.
RT

First the Lost Dutchman's Goldmine attacked us, *
Then excessively watered the cactus. **
...Now I find with dismay
...That an Apple a day
Keeps the Doctor away from his practice ! ***

* One of the early text-only adventure games. Like Zork.
** If you did anything but the right thing all you saw was a saguaro cactus
*** Remember when there were no Macintosh computers, just an Apple II ?


(I won $10 once for submitting that to an early computer magazine, in 1983 or so. That's the same as Second Prize in a Beauty Contest !)
The medieval peoples for Heaven did search
In transept cathedrals the heathens did worsh
Building their churches crossed shaped
As vehicles where souls could translate
Now every airplane flying is a cross shaped church

GNOSIS - GOAT
> comic verse consisting of five anapestic lines


Hm, yes, it can be – but the form is not exactly set in concrete.

Personally, the structure I think most satisfying is:
Rhyme scheme: AABBA
Lines 1,2,5: 9 syllables in 3 amphibrachic feet
Lines 3,4: 6 syllables in 2 anapestic feet

The unity of triploid feet helps weld the thing together, but the variation in stress patterns makes for more interest. This gives the characteristic declamatory inversion of normal speech rhythm in the first line ~ “There WAS an/old MAN of/deVIZes….” The alteration to anapaest in the middle couplet has something of the same kind of effect that a couplet does in a 14 line sonnet, but sprung into the humorous conclusion of the final line with both rhythmic stress and final rhyme striking conclusively as a closing bell (apart from variation for more humorous effect!)

ymmv

and now we return you to your regular program...
There once was a preacher from Dickey
Whose long-growing gnosis was tricky:
He had discarded god
As a vindictive sod
But a goat’s love soon gained him a quickie!



now an easy lob:

GIRDLE - - - GIRL
There once was a girl name of Myrtle
Who ran track and was facing a hurdle;
She ran and she jumped
but down she did thump,
being stopped at mid-leap by her girdle.


Somebody else please post new words for me--I can't get to my brick-and-mortar dictionary right now. Thanks.
how about these, from W3:

GHOSTLIKE GIBBET
With his feet through the floor of the gibbet,
A bit late to be urbane and glib, it
Was then his thirst spike
Caused the thought, so ghostlike:
"I could sure use a shot of Glenlibet."

CONFIDENTIAL – CONGO
In a document marked 'Confidential',
The President wrote "It's essential
That the Congo's unrest
Should be quickly suppressed,
Or its spread could become exponential".

ENORMOUS – ENTANGLE
Bravo! Some real goodies smile

and isn't it interesting how the very constraints of form (and content) can light a spark of creativity?
truly! grin
Bob's updated widget, newfangl'd
Thru some kind of glitch got entangl'd
Once quite enormous
Now so informous
Said, "Sorry for being embrangl'd."


RUDDERLESS RULED
Bach certainly thought so!
The second coming was to be the last going
With everyone knowing there was no return
A rudderless ship
Ruled Captainless
As a ship of fools enjoyed the last sojourn


HONK - HOODLUM
At last ... the missing verse from "A Salty Dog" by Procol Harum! laugh Worth listening to!

Your limerick makes as much sense! Actually, they did this at Cropredy about eight years ago. Brought tears to my eyes. But I love this version of it, done with a choir and the Danish National Concert Orchestra somewhere in Denmark a couple of years ago.
I thank you for the link. Wonderful.

HONK -- HOODLUM

The hoodlum retired one fine day
And swore he'd keep temper at bay.
...But when traffic would pile up
...His ire would just rile up
With "Get the [HONK] outa my way !!"

APRICOT - ARRAS
From the flux there's a potion to spare us;
Elude time, if we hide in the arras.
If we eat apricot,
And avoid smoking pot,
The result is: no runs, hits, nor eras*.

FOUR-STAR – FRAIDY-CAT

Click to reveal..
*Runs, hits, errors are basic baseball statistics.
I like.
I don't know, Luke. I think Trombone is slipping a deeper meaning into his well-crafted Limerick that almost passed over my head.

Think about the alternate meanings of flux, evading time, era, and apricot. See? Something is being said here that is lost with only a cursory reading.

Now rethink his ominous final line..."no hits, no runs, and no more eras" eek.
I guess I'd better spend some time on it, thanks.
Now Peter, if you are being bad........
There's an alternate meaning for apricot?
laugh Well no, Buffalo alternately-known-as-etaoin, that was just my corny interjection of ironoclastic humor. As this is.

Sorry. smile
ah, a balk.

;¬ )
Gosh. You want meaning? From me? At three o'clock in the morning?
Not you, Tromb; jenny threw the balk. :¬ )
Originally Posted By: LukeJavan8
I guess I'd better spend some time on it, thanks.
Now Peter, if you are being bad........


And while I'm in denial: Me? Bad?
I knew you weren't
a) in denial
b) being a bad boy.
Fatty was a fraidy-cat, the smartest dumb kid alive,
Appointed himself a four-star General(couldn't count to five)
Ned in the first reader
He flunked, but even sweeter,
He tracked down Ned cut off his head and stopped Ned's wordy jive. smile

QUEEN - QUIT
Certainly not a"See Spot run" and the kids, whatever their names
were, sort of primer. But I likes.
Good one, jenny jenny. Here's mine:

The tough four-star test is renowned;
Some swimmers have tried it and drowned.
But the fraidy-cat version
Requires no immersion –
One star for just splashing around.
(You need to post a couple new words for the group, A.C.)
jj did that.
In the '50s I fell for the queen
In a photo in LIFE magazine.
Now my lust will not quit,
Though I'm fed up with it.
It gets old, if you know what I mean.

KISSINGLY – KNAPSACK
...twice.

I love to go awandering along the mountain track
And as I go I love to sing my knapsack on my back
There's no such thing as a figurative kiss
"Kissingly" has no place in rhymes like this

Val-deri Val-dera ha ha ha, my knapsack on my back laugh

DUD - DUFFER
One of my favorite songs back in Glee Club Days,
thanks for the Memory JJ.
If you're simply a bit of a duffer,
You can hide it if you're a good bluffer;
But if you're a real dud,
You're stuck in the mud,
And life will be quite a lot tougher.

KNIGHT – KNOTTY
Knotty Knight

A fiery knight hunting for the grail
lost a couple of stitches from his mail
his knotty re-knitting
just would not quite fit in
't made him slip from his quest and his trail


KALE - QUIDITTY
KALE - QUIDITTY

..from the pages of the world's shortest dictionary! grin
To be specific on this quick random choice , the Collins 2007 (1871 pages) weighs 8lb 13.096oz which is a lot of potatoes.
but it goes from K to Q in one page?
Ah, kale, sweet kale, what bitter memories you won't foretell
Cow cabbbage, collard greens, spring greens, hungry gap, Jersey rape kale.
Unbelievably undesirable
Unthinkably indigestible
By a mutual quiddity kale is only eaten down in Hell
smile

DEPONE - DERANGE
Originally Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu
but it goes from K to Q in one page?

Oh, I see I hit the Roolz. I thought the K-sound of the Q would be good enough, but........ cheers from C.C. grin


OK, Then why not POSTPONE DEPONE - DERANGE and make it KALE - KARAT?
Originally Posted By: jenny jenny
Ah, kale, sweet kale, what bitter memories you won't foretell
Cow cabbbage, collard greens, spring greens, hungry gap, Jersey rape kale.
Unbelievably undesirable
Unthinkably indigestible
By a mutual quiddity kale is only eaten down in Hell
smile

DEPONE - DERANGE




Great laugh
If you haven't the stomach to bear it,
Add some gold to your meal to repair it:
If a salad of kale
Makes you shake and turn pale,
All it takes is to throw in a karat.

---------------------

The old cowpoke strode up to depone
On the salesman he'd killed with a stone.
"Caused my head to derange.
Tried to make me exchange
My Colt six-shooter for an iPhone."

LOPE – LOTTERY
Oops! Used those already. I'll be back.
PART-TIMER – PASSΙ
A part-timer, limerick rhymer, was Oppenheimer
Who became insane when his poems became passe
A social climber
An atom diviner
He invented a bomb to blow the world away.

FIZZLE - FLARE
Thank you A C Bowden for providing the words that really threw a spark to make me do a limerick.

Thank you Tromboniator for two good limericks.
My pleasure.
Outside's a monotonous drizzle
With clouds of a boring, dull grizzle
I felt near to despair,
So I lit up a flare
And a sparkler to watch them all fizzle.

Dunno if you have 'sparklers' your side of the pond? They're a silvery-grey, bullrush-shaped blob on the end of a wire, which you light up and they burn with a bright, sparkling light as you wave them around. Great fun! Kids like me love them.
[quote=Rhubarb Commando]
Dunno if you have 'sparklers' your side of the pond?/quote]

Had 'em when I was a kid, but I haven't seen any in decades. Probably illegal now.
Probably illegal? Could be but we are so behind the
rest of the world that I would not know. But I saw
some last July Fourth.
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
Outside's a monotonous drizzle
With clouds of a boring, dull grizzle
I felt near to despair,
So I lit up a flare
And a sparkler to watch them all fizzle.


"What a strange thing!
To be alive
beneath cherry blossoms"
_________________________ Kobayashi Issa (Poems)
Sorry, forgot to give two more words - again. frown

TURBOT - TURN
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator
[quote=Rhubarb Commando]
Dunno if you have 'sparklers' your side of the pond?/quote]

Had 'em when I was a kid, but I haven't seen any in decades. Probably illegal now.


Not illegal here. Actually they're one of the few types of fireworks that can be bought at a regular store, such as a grocery store around the 4th of July. WE bought several boxes this year and still have some around. Lit a few the other night at a party!
Originally Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator

Probably illegal now.


Not illegal here.

Just an offhand, cynical remark. No reason to believe it's true.
My remark, not yours!

Either way - sparklers are the last remnant of legal fireworks in many places in New England, or at least here ( = Massachusetts). Anything else you hear around here- and there is plenty - was probably imported from the South, or perhaps China.
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator
Originally Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator

Probably illegal now.


Not illegal here.

Just an offhand, cynical remark. No reason to believe it's true.


heh

no worries!
You can still buy all sorts of fireworks in UK - bangers, riackets, Roman Candles, Goblin Moines, etc, etc. When I was a kid, these were just for November 5th (Guy Fawkes Day, celebrating the burnig of the stake of the catholic terrorist who tried to blow up King James I of England (& VI of Scotland)and Parliament - almost enough to make me convert from atheism to catholicism!

But, increasingly, fireworks are moving into the hands of professionals who put on slendid firework shows, lasting half an hour and getting through several thousnad pounds-worth of gunpowder and chemicals which pollute the atmosphere as much as a motorway with four solid lanes of traffic for an hour.
The recent movie "Neverland" with Charlie Roe as Peter,
has a scene concerning ' penny for the Guy".
A turbot in every pot, a drink for every sot
Said the Queen who wasn't mean...well, not a lot
Give us cake, the riffraff said
In turn she said, off your head
Merry England wasn't very merry; merry it was not.

KAFKAESQUE - KARMA
I'm looking forward to the limerick with those two words.
Good choice JJ.
Some folks swear that my life's Kafkaesque.
Others doubt it: "Self-conscious burlesque."
It won't do any harm, a
Small effect on my karma
If I keep a cockroach on my desk.

ROSE – ROTATORY
Cheers, you did it,Peter!
Just so, Trombo. Any man who sees good in a cockroach is a friend of mine. Just don't invite me over. smile

Perfect limerick.
Brilliant, Peter! I've been trying - and failing - to get a limerick round these for days! Congratulations.
Thank you all. I was here when jj posted the pair, and it was a struggle, until suddenly it wasn't.
A young ballerina called Rose
Would rise on the points of her toes
In her father's conservatory
And, with movements rotatory,
Sink into a beautiful pose.

DISCLAIMER - DISCREET
A vignette in motion in the form of a poem.
What a lovely and moving thought.
Thank you kindly, Ma'am.
Whenas in silk my Julia goes she goes so sweet
Yo' Bro' dats my ho' makes her bread in dis street
Back fifteen I follow dis slut
B.I.G. don't watch her big round butt
A gangster banger gotta disclaimer when in discreet

HANDSPRING - HANGMAN
Pistorius, with blades but no feet
Put four shots in his girlfriend – dead meat
So he thought he’d just blame her
- A burglar disclaimer
Which was hardly discrete or discreet!

Wrote this in my head on the way to work this morning. Jenny's put up new words so I won't.
Good one, Capfka - and sooooo topical!
And I'll piggyback on that. So current.
HANDSPRING – HANGMAN

As a hangman, old Pierrepoint was best.
He sent over 400 to rest:
Once he’d done each one in
He’d go back to is Inn*,
And do handsprings to expand his chest.


* Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's last public executioner, when he wasn't administering "justice" to those deemed best dead by the court, ran a pubblic house, the Rose and Crown, just outside Preston, Lancashire - about 24 miles from where I live.
Love it. The only executioner more famous was Jack Ketch ...

And, oy! Where are the next two words?
Very nice, Rhuby, in a long=necked sort of way.
shocked O' how Albert could regale his customers at the Rose and Crown with food and drink. And I bet his gallows humor jokes were the funniest jokes going before knock-knock. Like...

Knock, knock
RC: Who's there?
Tunny
RC: Tunny who?
Give us tunny words or we'll go get Albert. shocked
Originally Posted By: LukeJavan8
Very nice, Rhuby, in a long=necked sort of way.


The story could be true but it's a stretch.
Many thanks, comrades
and the next two words are:-

SIXAIN - SKETCH
A sixain’s a bit of a stretch
A limerick’s five lines just a sketch
But to turn a six line
Into a limerick is fine –
Just get one line lopped off by Jack Ketch!

Nothing like carrying a theme through, is there ...

RIBALD - RIPARIAN
As Buff S says: "heh,heh"
Getting a bit hung up n this theme, aren't we?
I sit here on a riverbank to compose a ribald rhyme
The lush greenery distracts the riparian scene sublime
Stupid nature just grows
Mindlessly grows and grows
Then I remember that I am as well a part of the slime

UNDULATION - UNFOLD
THE VOYEUR

Her bright blue eyes and golden tress,
Soft undulations ’neath her dress,
He looks upon, with gaze so bold -
And waits to see her drapes unfold

FOLIATE - FOOD
... er, where's the limerick then, matey? You pulling some Scouser trick on us then?
:)))) Sometimes a man gets poetical and it might not even as well be spring....
Limerick is not a strict rule - and never has bin, culley. I have broken out into sixtrains and iambic pentameteters in the past, if the sentimeent of the topic demands it. This is the first time I've used a Khayyamic quatrain, but.
So there! :)-

Not to change the subject but... is that form a Kayyamic quatrain or rather a Fitzgerald-translationic quatrain? I know most of Homer in English is iambic pentameter but the original Greek, IIRC, was dactylic hexameter. What did Omar write in?
Perfect form and message.
With the read I became the voyeur.
Thank you, Commando.
It is Fitgeraldian - almost. Strictly speaking, the rhymes whould be A, A, B, A.

It could more properly have read:-

Her bright blue eyes and tresses gold,
He looks upon, with gaze so bold;
Soft undulations ’neath her dress:
He waits to see her drapes unfold
Yeah but I wonder; is there a ear here that can't hear with the eye the clear superiority of the first?

Fixed structures restrict Art. smile
True Art is to transcend the restrictions of the fixed structures. (discuss!
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
True Art is to transcend the restrictions of the fixed structures. (discuss!
Uh, didn't I just say that? confused
Well, jj, my hearin' ain't that a-cute, I guess, but what I heerd wus that you-all said,
Well, jj, my hearin' ain't that a-cute, I guess, but what I heerd wus that you-all said, wus -
"Fixed structures restrict Art."
Originally Posted By: jenny jenny
Fixed structures restrict Art. smile


All generalizations are wrong! wink
smile Yeahbut your generalizations, Trombonator; are the most wrongest in transliteration. Tighten up. smile
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
Well, jj, my hearin' ain't that a-cute, I guess, but what I heerd wus that you-all said, wus -
"Fixed structures restrict Art."

See how it goes when you turn it around. Art restricts fixed structures. The "truth"
lies somewhere in between.

Yeah bigmouth, now what? Hunting Season ended yesterday and you're still up this damn tree trying to bag a deer. Where's Jessie? He's in the lodge, eating cracking cornbread and drinking Sweet Lucy whiskey while I ain't et since Thursday.

"I'll eat when I climb down from the damn treestand to get the nine point food that I shot", my bigmouth had said.

This is my third day in the tree. I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm hallucinating. Last night I dreamed that fat and well antlered deer were everywhere, behind each bush, up in the tree, even flying about in the sky. Then I woke up to a gray sky and empty woods. But wait! Not fifty yards away in the foliage I heard a russle. The evergreen leaves moved slightly as the deer came closer. I raised my Remmington and fired and heard a scream. Hmm, I thought, deer don't scream.

"Oh Sweet Jesus" I cried. "I've shot Jessie!"

APE - APOLITICAL

A great short story, jj, I loved it - close to the objective but, I fear, no cigar! the second word was FOLIATE, not FOLIAGE

So, this one is still open, I believe?
Wait! wait! Jessie was just wounded not dead. shocked

Oh well, go ahead, make my day; maybe you'll mess up too. smile
Sweet jj - remeber the words of Baden-Powell: " The [person] who never made a mistake, never made anything!"

So far as I'm concerned, well; mistakes [shrug] I've made a few; but then, again, too few to mention. laugh
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
Sweet jj...So far as I'm concerned,

well; mistakes [shrug] I've made a few; but then, again, too few to mention. laugh


Listen loverboy, I've been to picture shows and indoor dances. You can't fool me. You stole that pick-up line from Frank Sinatra...

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way


I have the record. grin
Quote:
Listen loverboy

Obviously grin , you stole this one from Lauren Bacall in the 1942 movie 'Casablanca'.
Originally Posted By: BranShea
Quote:
Listen loverboy

Obviously grin , you stole this one from Lauren Bacall in the 1942 movie 'Casablanca'.


Yes dear BranShea; good lines, I've stole a few [shrugs] but then, again, to few to mention.
So I won't.
Unless I'm caught, and put in detention. frown
laugh
laugh laugh
(that's the teacher in me)
>Obviously , you stole this one from Lauren Bacall in the 1942 movie 'Casablanca'.

s'long as we're getting all pedantic here, Lauren Bacall was never in Casablanca, not even the tragically flawed remake featuring the young Kevin Bacon as Sam.

Bacall, Bergman, it's the same thing.
This time loverboy, I wasn't pedantic enough to even look it up.
"The big Sleep" or "Key largo" it's all the same. I just made it up. (as long as it got Humphrey Bogard in it) smirk
This has been a fascinating exchange of ideas and philosophies - which is what this Board is all about - but to bring you back to reality (on this thread, at least!) the current words for the next entrant are :-

FOLIATE - FOOD
Ok, RC, but not me.
The last time I tried to do FOLIATE - FOOD
"I screwed up my words up and down and back to Hell" *

* I think this is a quote from My Fair Lady. frown
If at first you don't succeed - try sucking eggs!
I never liked eggs until I tried sucking eggs
Sucking eggs suck because they don't have leggs
They hide in forest foliate
And attach to certain vertebrates
Yum...pick'em and boil'em, but don't eat the dregs

Now...

APE - APOLITICAL
Originally Posted By: jenny jenny
I never liked eggs until I tried sucking eggs
Sucking eggs suck because they don't have leggs
They hide in forest foliate
And attach to certain vertebrates
Yum...pick'em and boil'em, but don't eat the dregs

Now...


bzzzt! this may be about food, but it doesn't contain the word food.
EeK eek eek! Dumb dumb dumb. Help me tsuwm, I'm losing my once good mind. shocked
when the trees begin to foliate
and young hearts begin to agitate
it means just one thing
once again has come spring
stock up on food before it's too late
Thanks tsuwm, you saved me from a second embarrassment.
Now if you will kindly suppy the two words needed to continue this thread you will be our Humphrey DeForest Bogart. smile
APRICITY ARISTOLOGY

(from the pages of the wwftd dictionary wink )
a peach enjoying a spell of apricity
only shortly could live this warming felicity
the brotherhood of aristology
took quick care of its pathology
and then granted the fruit authenticity

MEWL MORTADELLA
A great poem, Branny - and you don't even like limericks!

Here's a hymn to Italian Food:


The mortadella’s smoky flavour
Is one I’m delighted to savour;
So don’t mewl or puke
If that’s what I cook
Try it – it’s bound to find favour!

EVANGELICAL - EVEREST
It was the challenge made me betray my solemn oath. Lancashire alas is too high up there to make a dinner call. smile

On with the good shepherd's work.

EVANGELICAL - EVEREST
English cheek knows no bounds they name our things in English
The tallest things of other's are named in English's veriest.
Some call it Deodungha
Some call it Chomolunga
Me being evangelical I refuse to call it Mount Everest .

HOUSE ORGAN - HUH
In proofreading our staff media
The new editor sneered with a "Huh!"
Seems I'd spoiled our house organ,
So got sacked by this gorgon
Just because I'd misspelled the word "the."

TRUMP –TRYST
Damned wench! Does not the gorgon know that you are an AWAD award-winning limerickist? Make that gorgon beech cite the rule for the spoken use of "thee" or "thuh" for the written "the".

As for me here is a song by Rice Miller I use as a mnemonic...*

There was an animal called the goat, he butted his way on the Supreme Court
"Let him go, please, please, let him go"
'cause he worked so hard you can't use him in yo' court no mo'
Judge give him five hours to get out of town, he got five miles down the road and committed another crime
That's when the high sheriff happened to be caming along, and caught the billy goat eating up the old farmer's corn
High sheriff takes the billy goat to the county jail, but the desk sergeant said "I'll go his bail"
Let him go.


* thee thuh


re. jj

Is it worth asking what you're on about? Only one of those "the"s is usually thee, and you marked it with the wrong color, if I'm interpreting your legend correctly.
Originally Posted By: Buffalo Shrdlu
re. jj

Is it worth asking what you're on about? Only one of those "the"s is usually thee, and you marked it with the wrong color, if I'm interpreting your legend correctly.

I dunno Buffalo, I guess it is worth whatever you determine.
I used Rice Miller's lyrics to suggest determinates for the two everyday enunciations of the word "the"...
1) our regional and local manners of speaking
2) the as thee specific directive and the as thuh not-so specific
3) thuh casual as opposed to thee formal
4) for lyrical reasons
But mainly to emphasize that there are no rules for correctly pronouncing "the".
_______________________________________________
TRUMP - TRYST




OK, I agree that we don't need no steenkin' roolz but -
over this side of the pond, the general practice, even in 'street-talk', is that words starting with a vowel sound are preceded by 'thee' and all others by 'thuh.' That is not what your colourful example, above, shows (as Buff rightly says.)
The "rule" I learned was "thee" before a vowel, "thuh" otherwise, with, of course, a few exceptions. (There are always exceptions...)

As RC says.
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
OK, I agree that we don't need no steenkin' roolz but -
over this side of the pond, the general practice, even in 'street-talk', is that words starting with a vowel sound are preceded by 'thee' and all others by 'thuh.' That is not what your colourful example, above, shows (as Buff rightly says.)



I've always subscribed to the same, except "thee" when
used in emphasis: "That was the (thee) best dinner I've ever had".
Well now boys, is not sectional diversity wonderful? How rigid are the (pronounced thuh) uh, arbitrary rules over in England and how richly is the (pronounced thee or thuh according to whim) English Language used here in the ever-evolving southern South.

Here, you see, we drawl but conserve our words. Nuance, pitch, so forth, and et cetera are all incorporated into a mishmash of meanings and this is why our words are alive and yours are becoming dead. laugh
how richly is the (pronounced thee or thuh according to whim) English Language used here in the ever-evolving southern South.


That's why the rest of the world some little once in a while has a hard time reading you.

TRUMP-TRYST
Maybe, Branshe. Or perhaps they are just stolid. smile

Jump Donald Trump you are slipping in the ratings
Find a frump Donald Trump the ratings are abating
Tryst her hire her
Admire her fire her
Hump Donald Trump the whole wide world is waiting

HEIRESS - HEPCAT
There once was a world-famous heiress
Who flew off to party in Paris.
She fell in with a hepcat
Who pampered her, 'cep' that
His acts were designed to embarrass.

COOKIE – COPILOT
The Copilot was the vet the pilot was the rookie
Their mission: Bomb the munitions plant at Kwazooki
The pilot had a boxlunch; a chicken and a cookie
The co-pilot's lunch was to bomb the plant at Kwazooki
He said:
"Lookie, Zero, nine oclock!" and stole the rookie's cookie.

FARMER - FATALITY
Loverly. crazy
There was once, in a rustic locality,
A sodbuster of utmost banality.
Thought himself a great charmer,
This troglodyte farmer.
His results were cupidic fatality.

AD LIB – ADROIT
I can just picture an amorous trogodite farmer.
In Detroit John Lee was adroit singing Boogie Children
Papa told Mama let that boy boogie-woogie while he's willing
After a bottle at the crib
John Lee Hooker did ad lib:
One scotch, one bourbon, one beer before singing Boogie Children

METAPHOR - METEOR
The philosopher said, “I’ve ne’er met a more
Appropriate trope for a metaphor
Than this visit from space,
Which approaches apace,
Of an apocalyptical Meteor.”
"Meteoric", when followed by "rise",
With the metaphor that it implies,
Seems quite out of place.
Having journeyed through space,
A meteor falls from the skies.

ORGY – ORIGIN

ORGY - ORIGIN
Willy paid for a spot at the orgy,
For an evening both sexy and gorgy.
His dough's fake origin –
A check signed "Ho Chi Minh "–
Got him wasted for passing a forgy.

CITY FATHER – CLANDESTINE
If you're looking for justice don't bother
If a clandestine man is your city father
He has but one plan
A plan with three hands
The judge, the city father, his daughter.

GLACIAL EPOCH - GLUE
The last glacial epoch was grim:
The ice piling up to the brim
Put the Earth in a stew;
Dinosaurs turned to glue
And the chance of survival was slim.

SUFFOCATE - SUIT
Weeeeeeeeeeell, the last glacial period ended about 1 X 10^4 years ago, and the dinosaur extinction was 6.6 X 10^7, but I guess if we can’t allow poetic license in a limerick… grin
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
The last glacial epoch was grim:
The ice piling up to the brim
Put the Earth in a stew;
Dinosaurs turned to glue
And the chance of survival was slim.

SUFFOCATE - SUIT


Trombonate,
What do we see when birds congregate? Dinosaurs
Trombonate,
What lines did the Ice almost terminate? Mine'n yores.
CO2ppm dropped to sixty-eight
At fifty-five all plants suffocate
Trombonate,
Global Warming suits me fine how 'bout you Dinosaurs? laugh

MAGIC - MADMAN
Once, life was entirely pelagic;
Then land beasts developed by magic.
It led to humanity,
Madman's insanity,
Greed, war, extinction...How tragic!

REIN – RELATIVE
Nice work. I had gotten as far as "pelagic" in my attempt, then got called away by a deadline.
Thank you.

By the way, I suggest that the rather lengthy title of this thread be changed to something snappier, e.g. "Sparteye's Game II".
I agree AC, maybeso wofahulicodoc can make the change.
Will ya, Wofa?

rein - relative
Dunno. I've seen ways to change the text of posts I've made but never the names of threads. Maybe a Moderator can, or perhaps it requires the Grand Moderatrix.

Jackie? Do your powers go that far? There's a motion on the floor to change the title of this thread to "Sparteye's Game II." Is this do-able?

Of course, we always have Plan B available, which would be to close out this thread and continue on a new one, perhaps to be called "Sparteye's Game III"...
When Anagrams reach 100 posts we get a notice and start
a new name, don't we wofa? Why not here?

Actually I've been restarting them at one thousand posts, believe it or not. Which is the reason I renewed this one; it had gotten up to 1200. (Consider what that means about the thread "Anagrams VIII" !)
Posted By: Jackie Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 03:18 AM
Well--I Edited the OP but saw that the change didn't carry over to other posts. AFIK, any Reply can change the title. Eh?

I got back home from rehab yesterday with my new knee; haven't had a great deal of time to be online yet.
Posted By: olly Re: Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 04:04 AM
Speedy recovery Jackie.
Nice to see you back.
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 06:11 AM
A few minutes here would bring anyone to their knees. Nice to see you, Jackie!
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 03:36 PM
I genuflect in awe to those who have this done.
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 03:39 PM
Glad you're back, Jackie. I hope the procedure wasn't too uncomfortable/painful and that you will soon be high-kickin' again!
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 06:19 PM
Welcome back, Jackie, and thanks for fixing the title.
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: Sparteye's Game II - 04/04/13 06:39 PM
For those who wish to rein-in the lofty rein of man
Remember that man-so-kind is Nature's only plan
Lo, the tree; a much loved relative
Dumb though; only barely cognitive
Who can stop the Ice Age and the Comet? __ Only Man.


elan - effete
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: French pronunciation lesson - 04/05/13 11:44 PM
Effete Paris types say ιlan
With a nasal sound as in penchant.
Southern Frenchmen say -an
To rhyme with 'Cιzanne'.
Rιpιtez les mots, mes enfants!
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: French pronunciation lesson - 04/05/13 11:50 PM
Next two words:

MAGGOT – MAGNETIC
Posted By: jenny jenny MAGGOTS and MAGNETS - 04/08/13 09:47 PM
Many multi-million maggots will morph this spring to fly
Horny humpers and eager rumpers; magnetic sex in the sky
Do the math:
Each female begets 100 and they beget every hour
Soon we run out of room (100 to the 100th power)
And tho' you'll think there's more than that in July - some will die.


Posted By: jenny jenny SPARTEYE'S GAME II : Two new words - 04/09/13 12:12 AM

OVERRULE - OUTRUN
Posted By: Jackie Re: SPARTEYE'S GAME II : Two new words - 04/12/13 10:16 PM
Thanks, y'all. I am being forcibly reminded that I do much better if I take the pain reliever regularly whether I seem to need it or not.
OUTRUN-OVERRULE

The judge said, "I'll not overrule
The piffle proffered by this fool.
Though his tongue can outrun
Swiftest sense, he's my son,
And he's just gotten out of law school.

GRUFF – GUARDSMAN
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Aural fortitude - 04/16/13 12:03 PM
The officer's voice sounded gruff:
"A soldier needs ears that are tough.
For a Guardsman to stifle
The noise of his rifle
Is quite frankly not good enough."

GANTRY – GARDEN
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Nursery rhymes re-told. - 04/16/13 01:56 PM
You have beaten me to it, AC: I was about to post the following

“It is certainly more than enough”
Said the Senior Billy Goat Grough
“That this bridge-guardsman Troll
Asks from us as a Toll!
His demands are excessively tough!”

So.
I must essay another tack

As the Goat crossed the stream on the gantry,
Said the Troll said, “You will do for my pantry!
Come into my garden!”
Said the Goat, “Beg yer pardon!
I’ll not come any place where you can try!”

TEMPERANCE - TENACIOUS

Carrie Nation chopped up a bar with her little hatchet
Carrie Nation was not cool unlike the nice Nurse Ratchet
Big Carrie was seldom gracious
Her temperance being tenacious
Drop that drink -I hear her I think- chopping in her casket

HARD-BITTEN - HARBINGER
A hard-bitten Temperance Queen,
C.A.Nation was oft to be seen,
A harbinger of woe
To the hard-drinking Joe
On whom she would vent her vile spleen!!

GARNISH - GASP
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Unreliable memoirs - 04/21/13 04:52 PM
Retired politicians' capacity
For bending the truth shows audacity;
They garnish their stories
With fictional glories –
We gasp at their lack of veracity.

THERMODYNAMIC – THESIS
THERMODYNAMIC – THESIS

The stuff of this world is semantical, to wit;
Science is made of anomalies re-arranged to fit
Yesterday's thermodynamics
Are today's quantum mechanics
That's my thesis and I'm sticking to it.


CHAPERONE - CHASE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Unfair handicap - 04/24/13 09:54 PM
In the Roman Fertility Chase,
Athletes of both sexes could race.
But the girls seldom won,
For few dared to run
At more than their chaperone's pace.

DUEL – DUMBSTRUCK
Posted By: BranShea Re: Unfair handicap II - 04/25/13 12:21 PM
In the Home Base Settings however
The girls felt free to endeavor
Fierce tirades that stuck
And left the men dumbstruck
As the athletes were strong but not clever.

HOMESPUN - HEARTBEAT
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: Unfair handicap III - 04/25/13 08:58 PM

Girls are gracile when they walk with voices high and sweet
Men have big heads and when they walk they walk on clumsy feet
Hear this saying honed and homespun
The math of sex is one plus one is one
Which sex is smartest let me think...men -in a heartbeat wink

LARVAE - LAVISH
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Unfair handicap III - 04/26/13 12:04 AM
Originally Posted By: BranShea
In the Home Base Settings however
The girls felt free to endeavor
Fierce tirades that stuck
And left the men dumbstruck
As the athletes were strong but not clever.

The other word was "duel". Can you work that in?
Posted By: BranShea Re: Unfair handicap III - 04/26/13 01:41 AM
Yes, I'm slightly overworked and a full year older so I overlooked the duel blush

But at home 't was a different duel
Where the ladies became downright cruel
Fierce tirades that stuck
Left the athletes dumbstruck
And it drained them of all of their fuel


LARVAE-LAVISH

Posted By: Tromboniator Bring on the grub! - 04/28/13 06:48 AM
The buffet looked enticingly lavish,
Which I planned rather quickly to ravish.
The main dish, which looked marvie,
Turned out to be larvae,
So I gagged, and decided to have fish!

THERMOPYLAE – THINKING
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Brave resistance - 04/28/13 06:37 PM
At Thermopylae, doubters were thinking
That the Greeks' battle fortunes were sinking.
But by their exertions
They held off the Persians
For two entire days without blinking.

MONDAY – MONITOR
Posted By: beck123 Re: Brave resistance - 04/29/13 01:27 PM
When tasked as the day's hallway monitor,
Little Willie might say, "I'll get on it," or
Since it was Monday
(Which isn't a fun day)
He might reply, "Heck, no! Gosh darn it, Sir!"

SAFETY - SAGACIOUS
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Brave resistance - 04/29/13 04:07 PM
HEY BECK123

Long time, no see.
Great to have you back. How's Florida?
Posted By: jenny jenny Long time no Beck - 04/30/13 02:19 AM

The great Beck is back both sagacious and classy
A prude is Beck; salacious and somewhat sassy
Beck's prime rule is safety first
But boring poems he finds worse
He marks his poems [Oh my Eyes!] only if they're trashy smile


HUM - HUN
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Papal diplomacy - 04/30/13 03:28 AM
When Attila the Hun met the Pope,
The Pontiff applied the soft soap:
"If you take your troops home
And don't attack Rome,
Then...hum...God will save you, I hope."

KRAKEN – KUDOS
Posted By: jenny jenny The Lime of the Ancient Sailor - 05/02/13 02:44 AM

The giant Kraken haunts the seas from Iceland to far Thailand
A crack at disguise; mates not et argue its proper phylum
My kudos to the Kraken
And if I'm not mistaken
It's a squid, it's a dragon, a whirlpool, a small island

ICE-CREAM - HYPNOSIS
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Under the doctor - 05/05/13 09:39 PM
Whilst supposedly under hypnosis,
I heard the doctor's diagnosis;
"When he's out of his dream,
Give him some ice-cream -
He'll be just fine: that's my prognosis."

OMISSION - OMPHALOS
Posted By: Tromboniator Bellyaching - 05/09/13 06:36 AM
The Greek scholar descried an omission
From her stocking: a Christmas tradition.
There was no citrus fruit;
In her soul, destitute,
For an omphalos orange she's wishin'.

AVOIDANCE – AYE
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: Bellyaching - 05/09/13 04:31 PM
Very clever, Peter!

There was a Scots poacher from Skye
Who did the gamekeeper spy.
"Sich a braw moonlicht night
Makes avoidance quite right:
We'll hae nae poached salmon to fry!"

COSTAL - COUCHANT
Posted By: jenny jenny It could happen. - 05/11/13 07:24 PM
A contortionist nammed Rosa Higginbottom
Was contorting for bucks in Gomorrah and Sodom
She bent into a Moebius state
A couchant twist with no excape
With her own costal bone stuck fast to her bottom

JEALOUS - JERK

Very clever, J.J. smile

Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: It could happen. - 05/17/13 04:03 PM
JEALOUS - JERK

With a jerk I came back to real life
From trying to spy on my wife.
When I fell from a bin
I did my leg in:
-Being jealous is too much hard work!

DISCLAIMER - DISCREET
Posted By: jenny jenny Take my wife.... please take my wife. - 05/20/13 07:19 PM

Now when I married I married with a legal *disclaimer*
I could leave her only if someone else would claimer
She's quite a looker the best you'll ever meet
She swears like a sailor 'tho kind and discreet
Vain, she looks into her mirror only: I don't blame her.

PRECIS - PRESCIENCE
Posted By: BranShea Re: It could happen. - 05/20/13 07:53 PM
In the meantime this wife acted very discreet
tripping lightly along the dark side of the street
his maimedness became her
unfailing disclaimer
for what some might regard as a mean sneaky cheat.

Edit: After logging in I saw the words were taken. I just do the side show then and leave the words the words.
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: It could happen. - 05/21/13 03:29 PM
I'm glad you posted it, Branny - even if j.j. pipped you to the post - yours is too good to miss out. Especially on top of j.j.'s nice one.
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: It could happen. - 05/21/13 03:34 PM
I'd a fifty-line poem on mind:
Here, just a Prιcis you'll find.
As I stopped in the street
A tile fell at my feet
My prescience had treated me kind!

UNLISTED - UNPALATABLE
Posted By: Tromboniator Telephonic tactics - 05/26/13 07:42 PM
I keep my home number unlisted.
Telemarketers, though, have persisted.
They think I'm gullible.
It's unpalatable.
I put screams on the tape – they've desisted.

CHARGED – CHASER

No, I don't really have a tape machine anymore.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Telephonic tactics - 05/26/13 08:35 PM
Excellent idea, tho', Peter.
Posted By: teepee Re: Telephonic tactics - 05/26/13 09:17 PM
Awaiting at bar to be charged
impropriety alcoholically enlarged
washed down with a chaser
I'm no prevaricator
Drunk way too much- but recharge!

DISCOMBOBULATED- DESPAIR
Posted By: jenny jenny The short answer is "yes". - 05/27/13 05:31 PM
I sit at a table discombobulated
The world spins around me inarticulated
Why do I sit in despair?
Why am I pulling my hair?
Am I going crazy as I sit with no chair? crazy

HULA - HURRICANE
Posted By: teepee Re: The short answer is "can't remember". - 05/28/13 12:59 AM
Eddy-fying spins- despotic ruler
En route to lavatory, jig-a-jig hula
Whipping up tempest hurricane
Consequences literally down the drain
Auf Wiedersehen to moolah

IMPETUOUS- IDYLLIC
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando How to study effectively. - 06/14/13 03:22 PM
Wow, teepee - that was not the easiest!

From Modern Art done in acryllic
To Lenin's works, writ in cyrillic,
For full value to get, you mus-
t not be too impetuous!
You must seek conditions idyllic!

CORUNDUM - COST
Posted By: teepee Re: How to study effectively. - 06/16/13 07:11 AM
Instead of coriander used corundum
Oh t’was such a conundrum
To the dentist such cost
O’er the tooth that’d been lost
A pauper’s life is so humdrum

DEBUTANTE- DELIGHT
Posted By: jenny jenny My heart beats like a hammer... - 06/17/13 03:26 AM

Deb deb debutante so so what I want
A Dixieland delight
A stars fell on Alabama night
A Dixie debutante is so so what I want

FAMINE - FARM
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Motto for Old MacDonald - 07/09/13 03:01 PM
On the farm in the spring there is Lambin';
In the Autumn, pigs turn into Gammon;
But if farmers all shirk
Their fair share of work,
The end result surely is Famine!
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Re: Motto for Old MacDonald - 07/10/13 01:42 AM

In the Autumn, pigs turn into Gammon

I would have expected them to turn to Mammon. Figuratively speaking, of course...
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Motto for Old MacDonald - 07/10/13 11:04 AM
I got stuck trying to work in "jammin'".

How about a pair for future generation?
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: Motto for Old MacDonald - 07/11/13 08:46 AM
Yes, Peter - my sin of ommission again! (I was drunk at the time I posted that one!)

SPAWN - SPECIALTY
Posted By: Tromboniator Any port - 07/12/13 11:35 AM
On his banjo, a true devil's spawn
He plays rock, folk, and blues until dawn.
His main specialty:
Irish songs of the sea,
Though from Manchester, called English John.

VENT – VERIFICATION

Admittedly not my finest effort; but as I listened to this fellow, a dear friend, the other night in Kharacters Bar, I raised a glass to you, Rhuby, wishing you were there. It was a grand night.
Posted By: jenny jenny Campaign To Clean UP Dirty Old Limericks - 07/14/13 02:23 AM

There was a young traveller from Kent
Whose head was on backwards and bent
You need varification?
On a homebound vacation
He vent-ed this lament
"Each step I went the further was Kent."

OAR - OBSESSION
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: Any port - 07/14/13 03:02 PM
Souds like an excellent session, Peter - I would have lived to be there, as I don't often get the chance to listen to folk music , these days.
And my thanks for the glass-raising!
Posted By: Tromboniator Sitzmark - 07/17/13 04:25 AM
My rowboat's my major obsession –
I row to release my aggression.
As I tug on that oar,
The seat makes my butt sore;
The result is a thwarted depression.

AD LIB – ADROIT
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando Re: Sitzmark - 07/17/13 06:55 PM
Nice one!
I feel at home here in Detroit
Here I am considered adroit
I sit here in my crib
My tomorrows I'll ad lib
Detroit has lots of lots to exploit

HAPPY - HARD-BITTEN

Hmmm.
The regular limerick players here seem to have cleaned the scene.
Oh well, I'll post here on occasion, maybe we can lick up some sterner blood. smile
Although I'm not here all the time
I'm HAPPY to send you a rhyme;
It's been hastily written,
So ain't quite HARD-BITTEN
In fact, it ain't worth half-a-dime!


IMMATERIAL - IMPACT
Posted By: Tromboniator Effects of Literacy - 08/14/13 10:57 PM
What we read has enormous impact -
Be it poetry, fiction or fact.
The source: immaterial -
I find boxes of cereal
Can cause my large brain to contract.

CODEX - COGNIZANT
Posted By: jenny jenny The Ill Effects of Too Much Literacy - 08/16/13 08:57 PM

Stop Reading and Write

Now is the time for your Renaissance
Your ken can be your beneficence
From your cortex extract
A codex of plain facts
And be cognizant of your cognizance

WORM - WOMAN
Posted By: BranShea Re: The Ill Effects of Too Much Literacy - 08/16/13 10:17 PM
A WOMAN in the Garden of Delight
Was offered an apple which she tried
Though the taste was quite well
She commenced crying: Hell!
I'm convinced there's a WORM in this bite!

SHRUBBERY-SHIPMASTER
Posted By: jenny jenny Moving right along... - 08/22/13 01:52 AM
No more seven seas just comfort and snobbery
The shipmaster now is surrounded by shrubberry
Gone is his schooner
He shoulda quit sooner
Gone are the whales and he is wan fat and blubbery

MELODY - MEMORY
Posted By: Rhubarb Commando An elegy - 08/26/13 01:39 PM
I'm entranced by life's rich melody:
So much better than death's threnody;
But its swift, brief ephemory
Leaves only a memory
Caused by its essential episody.

INCONSEQUENT - INCUBUS
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: An elegy - 09/02/13 05:14 AM
Originally Posted By: Rhubarb Commando
I'm entranced by life's rich melody:
So much better than death's threnody;
But its swift, brief ephemory
Leaves only a memory
Caused by its essential episody.

INCONSEQUENT - INCUBUS


Lo, to you my life might seem inconsequent
Lo, to me my life at night is heaven sent
Into my drab life does thrust
Visits by my incubus
Lo, my incubus is rich and pays the rent.

LONELY MAN - LONELY GOD


Posted By: Tromboniator Re: An elegy - 09/03/13 11:40 PM
Originally Posted By: jenny jenny

LONELY MAN - LONELY GOD



First and last headwords of an open dictionary? Really?
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: An elegy - 09/05/13 03:13 AM
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator
Originally Posted By: jenny jenny

LONELY MAN - LONELY GOD



First and last headwords of an open dictionary? Really?


No, Tromboiator, the night was late and I was drinking and I was moved by what I wrote so I posted "Lonely Man Lonely God" as a quickfix.

I intended to edit these words the following morning but I became intrigued by the possible responces a reference to a "God" (God forbid) might receive among the in-house group of AWADers.

I got my answer. The new words are...

WITCH - WIZEN smile
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: An elegy - 09/05/13 06:15 PM
Ah. I went in the non-poetic direction of trying (and failing) to envision a dictionary page (or several) with nothing but "lonely" entries. Copout, I suppose.
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: An elegy - 09/06/13 04:18 AM
Not to mislead, Trombone.

Lonely Man Lonely God is the title of a book that I read a hundred years ago. Written by a Catholic Priest from the Northeast it was subtitled The Pleasure/Pain Principle Governing Humanity

What a trip. They don't make books like that anymore.

WITCH - WIZEN
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: An elegy - 09/06/13 07:19 PM
In the glass I can watch my face wizen:
Skin that could have been palace or prison.
Though I've never been rich,
With my tall, red-haired witch
Life has never ceased boilin' and fizzin'.


RAUNCH – REACTIONARY
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: An elegy - 09/10/13 11:47 AM
Oooo! I like that one, Trombone.

Where you at, Commando?

RAUNCH - REACTIONARY is in your court. smile
Posted By: jenny jenny What hath Evil wrought - 09/16/13 02:51 PM
What dark thing do evil men launch
Words are tricks; no things are staunch
Our words became extraordinary
The words we thought reactionary
Are now a liberal's communist raunch


PEARL ------ PEEK-A-BOO




Posted By: Tromboniator Ah, Terpsichore - 09/29/13 10:14 AM
I watched a young woman named Pearl –
To be accurate, more of a girl.
Her leg played peek-a-boo
Twixt her hem and her shoe
As she danced in an elegant swirl.

CHARGED – CHASER
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Ah, Terpsichore - 09/29/13 03:08 PM
Very nice, Peter.
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: Ah, Terpsichore - 09/29/13 05:51 PM
Yes, Tromboner, nice touch.
I wish I had a genteel manner so I could write stuff such as that. frown
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Ah, Terpsichore - 09/29/13 09:41 PM
Thanks, folks. Gosh, genteel. I'll have to see if I like the fit across the shoulders. grin
Posted By: jenny jenny September Song - 10/01/13 05:00 AM
CHARGED – CHASER

Mark not days of progressive spacers
Count instead those of regress erasers
[And the days dwindle down
To a precious few
]
Once I charged; now (like you) I'm a chaser

HORRIBLE - HOST
Posted By: wofahulicodoc :-( May I have your attention, please - 10/09/13 07:20 PM

I think a moment of silence is in order.

Anne H., whose Board nom was Sparteye and for whom this game was named, passed away yesterday after a courageous bout with cancer.

She was loved by all who knew her, on this Board and in person. She will be sadly and sincerely missed but warmly remembered.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: :-( May I have your attention, please - 10/09/13 08:04 PM
Thanks wofa,
may she rest in peace.
Yes, thank you Wolf.
I didn't know her but I miss her nontheless.
Posted By: olly Re: :-( May I have your attention, please - 10/10/13 05:52 AM
So sorry to hear that. Sparteyes legacy lives on.
Amen.
Posted By: garygnu Re: :-( May I have your attention, please - 10/20/13 05:47 PM
my reputation is horrible
demeanor incorrigible
a ghastly host
devastating to most
deplorable
despicable
me

coitus cancer!

(Still fighting. Sorry to hear about Anne.)

Stream - Strike
Posted By: jenny jenny Remember when... - 10/28/13 12:44 AM
A Song

Down by the old mill stream
(strike up the band)
Where I first met you
(strike up the band)
You were sixteen
My village queen
Down by the old mill stream

PANDORA - PALL-BEARER
Posted By: Tromboniator Here? No evil. - 11/11/13 10:09 AM
There once was a lass called Pandora
Who popped the lid off an amphora.
We now live in terror
From midwife to pallbearer,
In Manhattan or in Bora Bora.

DRUMLIN – DUBITABLE
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: Here? No evil. - 11/16/13 04:53 PM
Ah yes, Tromboniator. The limerick masters would be proud.
A bit of history, a road trip, amd a moral; all tightly written with close meter and perfect rhyme. Good show!
______________________________________________________________

DRUMLIN - DUBITABLE
Posted By: jenny jenny A Quiz A Test A Rhyme - 11/21/13 07:42 PM

A geologist and a she-ologist were sitting on a drumlin
The she-ologist was gneiss the geologist fat like a pumpkin
Sitting like Buddha inscrutable
His intentions were dubitable
Which one was the male and which one was fat as a pumpkin?

BIAS - BIGAMY
Posted By: Tromboniator 123 4th St. - 12/22/13 11:52 PM
I hope you can conquer your bias;
I know some people think we're impious,
But we like bigamy.
It's much better with three –
Or with four! Come on over and try us!

HISTORIAN – HOG
Posted By: jenny jenny The Lustful Nature of Hogs - 12/31/13 04:03 PM
Being a Hog Historian is a boring chore
A "herd" is fifty sows served by one boar
But over in Alabamy
A sow named Big Amy
Will stand for fifty boars and squeal for more

NE'ER-DO-WELL --- NAZIFY
Posted By: Tromboniator Becalmed - 04/21/14 04:23 AM
I'm sorry, but NAZIFY took the wind out of my sails. I can't seem to find anything clever there.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Becalmed - 04/21/14 05:02 PM
Nor do I.
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Re: Becalmed - 04/21/14 06:37 PM

I have something in mind; give me a little while to work on it...
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Rabble-rousers - 04/24/14 12:48 PM
Some ne'er-do-well, wild rhetoricians
In bad economic conditions
Attempt to cause strife
To Nazify life
And further their sordid ambitions.

PENDULUM – PERFORM
Posted By: jenny jenny Rabble-rousers are people too. - 04/25/14 02:25 AM

Thank you A.C.Bowden, you seem to have leapfrogged over "clever" and landed on "brillant" even while seemingly making your wording as easy as A.C.B.

Thanks from all.

PENDULUM – PERFORM
Posted By: Tromboniator Hanging around, periodically - 04/25/14 11:50 AM
My life is the swing of a pendulum
Attempting to reach equilibrium.
Mostly, tasks I perform
Deviate from the norm:
Witness limericks which never quite end up plumb.

ALLIANCE – ALMOST
Posted By: jenny jenny Why they add bitters to a sweet cocktail - 04/25/14 04:12 PM
My life has been perfect almost
Good friends good books a house on the coast
My cat my dog are in alliance
My birthday gift - a new appliance
Ah yes, life is good but burnt is the toast

OUTRUN - OVERALLS
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Mired in difficulty - 04/26/14 02:19 AM
In marathons, athletes outrun
The folk who just enter for fun,
Except for one time
When they struggled through grime
And a sweeper in overalls won.

CIPHER – CIRCUIT
Posted By: jenny jenny The Windmills of your Mind - 04/27/14 01:54 PM
Would you rather be mired in a cipher or a circuit?
Neither (says the dreaming man) no cipher would be perfect
The moon circles the Earth
The Earth circles the sun
The morning dream will circle your id until you finally jerk it.


GLACIAL - GHOST
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Long-lost friend - 04/28/14 01:59 AM
Some spectres are genial guys;
No glacial stare fills their eyes.
One jaunty old cove
Of a ghost said: "By Jove!
It's you, old boy! What a surprise!"

INTACT – INVOLVE
Posted By: jenny jenny Lonely God Lonely Man - 04/29/14 04:11 AM
Mankind has never seen a wave or particle
What we've seen is a wave and particle track
We our selves involve ourselves
In things ourself can never solve
But one day flight 670 will surely be found intact

LUCIFER - LUNCHROOM
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Planning for Armageddon - 04/29/14 01:17 PM
I think this calls for a clerihew:

Old Lucifer
Thought he would make victory conclusiver
If he plotted in his lunchroom with his fellow-devils
A strategy for escalating wickedness to even higher levels.

IMAGERY – IMPRECATION
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: Planning for Armageddon - 04/29/14 03:44 PM

Egads, maybeso I'd best pass this one up. As I was hurrying to finish my snarky words last night a tornado passed through almost hitting my house. What a mess; two dozen big hardwood trees snapped like toothpicks, and two canoes now sailing somewhere in the sky.

Whew! I think I'll go somewhere and be good for a day or two because bad weather is expected again later today.

IMAGERY - IMPRECATION
Posted By: jenny jenny Armageddon Thwarted - 05/05/14 03:12 AM

Papadiabolous The Devil
Covets imagery of a world that's level
Evil winds this week visited my neighberhood
Now my imprecation to him is - I vow to be good
He hates that


MARCONIGRAM - MARIMBA
Posted By: Tromboniator We interrupt this broadcast - 05/05/14 11:35 AM
I received a late marconigram,
Sent to me by the King of Siam.
The marimba ringtone
On my ancient iPhone
Told me it was deleted as spam.

FIXED – FLAP
What's all the flap about prize fights being fixed?
Fight One: Clay was dancing Sonny was deep-sixed
Fight Two: Sonny, a draft-dodging Mohammad fought
Sonny made Round One; one more than he ought
Did he dive? 'My ass ain't bullet proof' Sonny said
Six years later they found Sonny Liston drugged and dead.

HEPCAT - HEIRESS




Posted By: Tromboniator …and all that jazz. - 05/13/14 03:20 AM
A billionaire globe-trotting heiress
Owns a yacht with a five-acre terrace,
Cavorts with hepcat
And smokes crack in her flat.
The fact is, I just couldn't care less.

Didn't we do that pair not so long ago?

TEMPLE – TENTACLE


Most of the words I read I'll never utter
So I clean my brain daily so as not to clutter
Brain tentacles near my temples
Remove worthless words and pimples
I look good but sometimes I stuh...stuh...stutter

DIMINUENDO - DINKY


Posted By: jenny jenny The Last Ride of Poncho and Cisco - 05/25/14 02:56 PM


The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine
We'd sing and drink tequila in my dinky adobe hacienda
I'd say "Oh, Cisco"
He'd say "Oh, Pancho"
A happy innuendo of life were we
As we rode Diablo and Loco into the sunset... diminuendo

RADIATE - QUIT
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: The Last Ride of Poncho and Cisco - 05/26/14 05:39 AM
Haven't been back to my dictionary or my computer since I wrote this last night, but it's code and lonely if I don't share it.

It does me no good to pretend, so
I've never played games by Nintendo.
As I age skill gets dinky
From my thumb to my pinky.
Flexibility? Diminuendo.

RADIATE - QUIT
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Pithy comment - 05/29/14 04:25 PM
Disc jockeys should radiate wit;
If they cannot do that, they should quit.
I'm often appalled
At the platitudes drawled
By some coolly self-satisfied git.

GRAPPLE – GRUMBLE
Posted By: jenny jenny Pithy Ditty from Diddy-wah-Diddy - 06/02/14 05:57 AM


As I walk through an orchard enroute to the chapel
I stop and curse living under love's plan to baffle
When I said I love you I lied
When you said I'll leave you I cried
Should I mumble grumble "yes" or go grapple an apple?

QUACK - QUEEN
Posted By: Tromboniator Check, please! - 06/02/14 08:35 AM
I thought you effete, and a quack
From your timid, untutored attack.
Yet you ravished my queen
From a quarter unseen;
Then you mated my king from the back!

GOUGE – GRAIN
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Delicate surgery - 06/05/14 09:57 PM
Though the lump was the size of a grain
And caused me no serious pain,
The doctors agreed
That there was a need
To gouge out a chunk of my brain.

HULL – IGNORANT
Posted By: jenny jenny Platitudes to live by - 06/06/14 01:07 PM


Some think me incoherent
And think these words an ignorant rant
But
Eat the peanut not the hull
Bad apples are best to cull
Shoot an elephant and ignore an ant


LAND MINE -- LAPIS LAZULI

Posted By: Bazr Re: Sparteye's Game II - 06/09/14 05:24 AM
Life is tough like a land mine
We all go through and learn to shine
Spreading our wings in all endeavors
Scraping our knees on tracks and rivers
Playing our hand to be truly
Until we achieve our lapis lazuli

PLUVIAL - UMBRAGE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Versatile objects - 06/09/14 11:35 AM
The changeable climate of Wales
Encourages parasol sales;
They give umbrage in June
But are also a boon
In showers or pluvial gales.

REHEARSAL – REQUEST
Posted By: Tromboniator Act of Will? - 06/12/14 12:19 AM
The poor actor, at last night's rehearsal,
Felt his lines go in vap'rous dispersal.
At his urgent request
They performed a small test:
Prose will not be retained, but a verse'll.

OLEO – ONCE
Posted By: jenny jenny Rhyming Dunce (ain't easy) - 06/12/14 05:51 AM

Ole King Oleo had it all
A Jester named Lester
A Queen named Jean...but no Dunce
I hid undercover
Lest he discover
That I was a Dunce...once

SHEBANG - SHELL GAME
Posted By: jenny jenny Playing with myself...oh well. - 06/19/14 05:23 PM

She bang he bang life is a shell game
Yin Yang play game and play game more
Then Yin like poontang
Then Yang like yangyang
No more yin no more yang nevermore.

LOVE LOWERCASE
Posted By: Tromboniator A FONTASY - 06/20/14 07:12 AM
I write "paris, the city of love"
in my heart - tops, when push comes to shove -
But I'm deep in disgrace,
'Cause it's writ lowercase:
Can't recall what it's capital of.

SHROUD – SIDE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Back in 1952... - 06/20/14 12:11 PM
In London the smoke used to shroud
Side streets in malodorous cloud;
Old-timers remember
One postwar December
When smog culled the capital's crowd.

ENTERPRISE – EXCEED
Posted By: Tromboniator At a loss - 06/22/14 08:12 AM
To lose weight is a tough enterprise,
Thus, I offer this word to the wise:
Let not intake exceed
The cube root of your greed,
And your pants will diminish in size.

FLITTING – FLOTATION
Posted By: Bazr Re: At a loss - 06/22/14 11:22 AM
While you are flitting merrily about
Remember you are going to scream and shout
When you spend time and effort in frustration
As the vessel you are on begins to sink
And everyone on board scampers for flotation.


AMMONOID - VERBARNECTOCALYX
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Roolz for Sparteye's Game - 06/22/14 02:28 PM

Maybe they're unwritten, or lost in the depths of antiquity, but here they are, IIRC:

Sparteye's Game, as originally conceived: Use two particular given words in a short poem. Then present your own pair of words for the next person to use similarly.

-- The verse is [usually] in the form of a limerick, with its standard rhythm (the most frequently-bent rule)

-- The words to be used are not arbitrary; they come from some word-centered dictionary, or thesaurus, or such. They should be "index words," the first and last words on a single page.


The challenge in the game is to find word pairs that will be difficult (read "interesting," if you like) to incorporate into a single coherent short verse, not to bring the game to a screeching halt. Impossible words really aren't that hard to come by; there's no virtue in it.

Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Difficult words - 06/22/14 08:59 PM
Originally Posted By: Bazr
AMMONOID - VERBARNECTOCALYX

Well, I'll have a go:

The technical term ammonoid
Is a word that I tend to avoid.
Verbarnectocalyx
And strange words like Gaelic's
Keep skilled phoneticians employed.

DISMAY – DISUSED
Posted By: Bazr Re: Difficult words - 06/23/14 11:57 AM
All of a sudden to my dismay,
A rich old man fell down in the clay,
He picked himself up and wasn't bemused,
For his suit was quite muddy and looked disused.

FALLACY - FINITE

Well done A C!!
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Cosmogony - 06/23/14 03:33 PM
Some physicists think it is clear
That the cosmos has always been here.
A fallacy found
In minds less profound
Is the finite creation idea.

PALATIAL – PANTOMIME
Posted By: Bazr such is life - 06/24/14 09:11 AM
A palatial home can be a thing of beauty,
Maybe a cabin is more in style,
The fruits of our labor come with added time,
But all who endeavor to risk the chance,
Are only going to find out at a glance,
That it is all a pantomime.

SAXON - SCABBARD
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: In ancient England - 06/24/14 11:12 PM
As I learned in a history course,
The Saxon invaders had force.
With broadsword and scabbard,
Their troops fiercely jabbered
Until they succumbed to the Norse.

BUNDLE – BYWORD
In my job as a vote promoter I bundle bread
To pay folk to vote be they 'live or be they dead
My byword is "Vote Democrat"
They seldom do- fancy that!
So instead I take names, kick butt, growl, and knock heads

SCHEMER - SCIENCE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Not for real - 07/05/14 12:19 PM
I'm just an idealist dreamer,
Not an active political schemer.
I place no reliance
On theory or science
Advanced by some tub-thumping screamer.

MILLER – MISCELLANY
Posted By: Bazr messy - 07/09/14 06:35 AM
To a miller be an occupation,
But a profession be on graduation,
Signs and wonders never heard of,
A great encounter to reflect upon.
It is a chore to the many,
That a person of high esteem be miscellany.

PHICON - PIGATRY
Posted By: jenny jenny Re: messy - 07/09/14 06:43 PM

Really, Bazr?
What down underworld dictionary has those two obscure words at your casual flip?

And otherwise your poem as well is obscure. crazy
Posted By: Bazr Re: obscure - 07/09/14 11:54 PM
Isn't obscurity the spice of life?
We all pale into obscurity, don't we?

It's from Mirriam-Webster Open Dictionary on New Words & Slang.
Posted By: Tromboniator Frangible Inyourface? - 07/10/14 07:21 AM
I think that I get pigatry –
I watch it each night on TV –
But I don't get phicon:
Run, purple, or Nikon?
To me it's a deep mystery.

VOLE – VOWEL
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: obscure - 07/10/14 04:03 PM
Originally Posted By: Bazr
Isn't obscurity the spice of life?
We all pale into obscurity, don't we?

It's from Mirriam-Webster Open Dictionary on New Words & Slang.


laugh Most of us anyhow!
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: English snobbery - 07/17/14 12:10 PM
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator
VOLE – VOWEL

There was a pretentious old soul
Who pronounced 'Vowel' something like 'Vole'.
As an owner of land,
He thought himself grand,
And said his name 'Powell' as 'Pole'.

REPTILE – RESTRAIN
Posted By: jenny jenny American Defeatism - 07/19/14 03:04 PM
-> Yes I know, but maybe I should receive one star for being topical. frown

Listen my children and you shall hear
A rhymed black limerick by Nostradamus
The bear from the East, Putin, goes insane
Our reptile boy Motus, (read POTUS) doesn't restrain
Planes fall from the sky and we all die...all of us.


GYPSY - GUSTO



Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Con brio - 08/02/14 02:03 AM
In a hot oriental bazaar,
A gypsy girl played the guitar.
Her skill was not much,
But her gusto was such
That the crowds all proclaimed her a star.

LOCOMOTIVE – LORGNETTE
Posted By: jenny jenny Commoners and Queens - 08/11/14 03:05 PM
In 1842 Queen Victoria became the first monarch to ride in a car pulled by a locomotive. A failed assassination attempt on her life as she rode about in the royal horse-powered carriage a month earlier might have been her prompt.

Her footmen rode standing near the soot stack up front
Among cut flowers the Queen followed in a railcar with a loo
She looked out the window and raised her lorgnette
A grimy commoner was staring in - their eyes met
At that magic moment both simultaneously knew
That kings, queens, and commoners, would one day be few.


GORILLA GRABBING



Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Unexpected abduction - 08/25/14 06:31 PM
There was an enormous gorilla
Which lived in a zoo near Manila.
A man caused surprise
By grabbing its thighs
And marching it back to his villa.

SLIGHT – SLURRY
Posted By: Tromboniator Unexpected attack - 08/25/14 08:58 PM
I bump her 'cause I'm in a hurry,
Spill her drink. Now her eyes flash with fury.
She imagines a slight,
And she's ready to fight.
My eyes burn with vodka-ice slurry.

START – STATUTE
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Unexpected attack - 08/26/14 03:52 PM
I have to admit my mind was wandering (it often does that)
but I read both yours, AC, followed by Trom's, limericks
and I cannot print the vision I had by one following the
other. Thanks for the laugh, odd tho' it was.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Legal tangle - 09/01/14 09:19 PM
START – STATUTE

I have taken the liberty of pluralizing 'statute':

Some statutes have language that rambles,
And some start with lengthy preambles;
No wonder some students
Compare jurisprudence
To wading through thickets of brambles.

FOYER – FUSSY
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Legal tangle - 09/07/14 05:49 AM
Please take all the liberties you like, as far as I'm concerned. The results are stupendous.

She was coy when they met in the foyer;
Apparently she's his employer.
He seemed nervous and fussy –
It was clear that the hussy
Intended to have him enjoy her.

FETE – FIDDLING
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Poor intonation - 09/10/14 10:10 PM
Our church held a fete in July;
The weather was sunny and dry.
A fiddling pair
Played an old English air –
They were crap, but they gave it a try.

ASHLAR – ASTOUNDING
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Master masons - 10/21/14 02:07 AM
At the time of the old city's founding,
The builders used stones without rounding;
They progressed to smooth rocks,
Then fine ashlar blocks –
Their rate of advance was astounding.

RISK – ROISTER
Posted By: Tromboniator Nun shall pass - 10/21/14 11:16 PM
She escaped o'er the wall of the cloister
Not to binge and to orgy and roister.
No, she took such a risk
To acquire a disc
From a band called the Cult of Blue Φyster.

GOUGE – GRAIN
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Not done by aliens - 10/24/14 12:28 AM
There's news of crop circles again!
Their means of production is plain:
Contraptions on strings
Gouge out perfect rings
While their wielders advance through the grain.

DOMESTIC – DUKE
Posted By: Tromboniator Dagnabit! I mean Rats! - 11/01/14 12:36 PM
Seems the dukedom had problems domestic,
That the palace had rodents majestic.
The solution? The duke
Telephoned to some kook
In the listings: Ajax Anapestic.

MALEFICENT – MANAGE
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Dagnabit! I mean Rats! - 11/01/14 03:29 PM
I hope "My Highness" never gets invited to that castle !

Good one, Peter.
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Dagnabit! I mean Rats! - 11/01/14 09:17 PM
Thank you. Just had foundation work done on the house, and now we have a small creature abiding in the kitchen.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Dagnabit! I mean Rats! - 11/02/14 04:30 PM
Are you sure this small creature is not Gillie?
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Bloodthirsty tyrant - 11/04/14 09:09 PM
MALEFICENT – MANAGE

A maleficent Army dictator
Once ruled somewhere near the Equator;
He managed to kill
Many thousands at will,
Fed alive to his pet alligator.

PENTECOST – PERCEIVE
Posted By: Tromboniator Say when. - 11/10/14 01:18 AM
My sense of the season is lost;
I can't tell if it's heatwave or frost.
I can't seem to perceive
If tonight's New Year's Eve
Or a couple weeks past Pentecost.

GARB – GASPER
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Say when. - 01/08/15 05:05 AM
Well, I'd say that was a disaster. Suppose we try

PIONEER – PITCH
Posted By: May Re: Why? - 01/10/15 08:12 PM
Our friendly host, Gasper
may look funny as per
his unusual garb.
Dressed in black, beware his witty barb,
reminiscent of a rasper.

Pioneer - Pitch
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Re: Why? - 01/11/15 06:38 PM

A pioneer Scotsman named Pitch
Has a workhorse, but one with a hitch:
... There's a sore on his fetter
... That just won't get better
And if he don't scratch it, he itch!


HUNGER - HYPERBOLE
Posted By: Tromboniator Great Scot! - 01/12/15 04:11 AM
A self-centered lad from Dundee
Said, "I'm good with the ladies, you see.
For me women hunger –
They call me Lovemonger."
But I think that's hyperbole.

RIOT – ROACH
Posted By: wofahulicodoc High Society - 01/13/15 03:12 AM

"You say as a stud you're a riot?
Well, frankly, I'm not sure I buy it."

"To get girls in your coach,
Offer drags on a roach.
You never can tell till you try it!"


AMBULANCE - ARABESQUE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Silly dance - 02/02/15 03:42 AM
My colleague climbed onto her desk
And performed an absurd arabesque.
She fell in a bin,
But exclaimed with a grin:
"No ambulance, please – it's burlesque!"

HALBERD – HARANGUE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Quelling the revolt - 02/15/15 03:25 AM
The Tudors were having a blitz
Against some recalcitrant Brits.
Thus did they harangue
The rebellious gang:
"Our halberds will cut you to bits!"

CUBE – CUSTOM
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Quelling the revolt - 03/09/15 07:43 AM
Those weirdos bow down to a cube.
That's worse than just being a rube –
It defies sacred custom!
Never mind. Cops'll bust 'em.
Come on, let's go watch some more tube.

ALLIANCE – ALMOST
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Outstaying their welcome - 03/12/15 01:50 AM
It's not (as they say) rocket science
To work out that NATO's alliance
Can almost be snapped
If its forces are apt
To provoke "friendly" nations' defiance.

MIME – MISSTATE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: No good at languages? - 03/30/15 11:49 PM
If you find you've misstated a term,
You might feel embarrassed and squirm.
If that's what you dread,
You can mime it instead
Provided your gestures are firm.

DIMMER – DISCURSIVE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc playing fast and loose with the Roolz - 03/31/15 01:14 AM

If you meet an attractive young swimmer
And you'd like her to join you for dimmer
Unless you're disbursive
(Not simply discursive)
Your prospects for "after" are slimmer.


ELEPHANT - EQUINOX

All right, all right, if you insist.


If you meet an enticing young swimmer
And you know that you ought to be slimmer
Unless you're disbursive
(Not simply discursive)
Your prospects get dimmer and dimmer.


(Personally I like the first one better.)
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Chilly weather - 04/04/15 01:50 PM
ELEPHANT – EQUINOX

The recent spring equinox fell
In a cold and tempestuous spell.
The poor kangaroo
Dropped dead at the zoo
And the elephant didn't feel well.

SILL – SIREN
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Spring comes to the Big City - 04/04/15 08:55 PM

SILL - SIREN

No matter how yellow his bill,
The birdie who hopped on my sill
Said he just couldn't stay
He was startled away
By a firetruck's siren too shrill.

ROBIN - ROCKPILE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: A tragic tale - 04/10/15 04:24 PM
ROBIN – ROCKPILE

On a rockpile a robin was perched,
When the stony heap suddenly lurched,
Then collapsed on the ground;
The deceased bird was found
Beneath, when the gardener searched.

INSULATE – INTANGIBLE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc A Modest Proposal,, he said swiftly - 04/10/15 05:53 PM
Originally Posted By: A C Bowden
ROBIN – ROCKPILE

On a rockpile a robin was perched,
When the stony heap suddenly lurched,
Then collapsed on the ground;
The deceased bird was found
Beneath, when the gardener searched.

Underneath instead, in Line 5?
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Yes, he said affirmatively - 04/10/15 11:03 PM
Originally Posted By: wofahulicodoc
Underneath instead, in Line 5?

Yes, that's OK.

Actually, I was going to put "Underneath" originally, but changed it at the last moment. smirk
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Choice of connection - 04/18/15 12:25 PM
INSULATE – INTANGIBLE

It's important to insulate wires
To guard against shocks, shorts and fires.
With wireless (non-frangible,
Safe and intangible)
You can forget about pliers.

SCHOLAR – SERENE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc and was gleeful about it, no less - 04/19/15 02:12 AM

SCHOLAR - SERENE

I once knew a Ten-o'Clock Scholar
Who was never hot under the collar
We all thought him serene
Till a thinking machine
Took his job, with a hood and a holler!

SANDPAPER - SCRAP
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Lousy woodwork - 04/26/15 03:46 AM
When I was at school we learned Craft;
I remember the other kids laughed
When I sandpapered wood
Much more than I should,
And the teacher yelled: "Scrap it – you're daft!"

BUBBLE – BURETTE
Posted By: Tromboniator Be patient. - 04/27/15 11:54 PM
Doc Frankenstein's nurse, named Babette,
Dribbled HCl from a burette.
The corpse stared to bubble,
Rubbed its palm o'er its stubble,
Mumbled, "Babs, I need a cigarette."

LOW – LUCK
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Emergency braking - 05/22/15 12:17 AM
My chance of survival was low
When a street tramrail caught my shoe's toe;
But although I was stuck,
I had some good luck,
For the trams on that day were quite slow.

DIACONATE – DIGHT
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Suitable attire - 06/04/15 05:03 PM
In the vestry the clerics are dight
In canonicals dusky or bright.
The diaconate's kit
Would never befit
An archiepiscopal rite.

INNKEEPER – INVERSION
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Restoring order - 06/23/15 03:16 AM
Some youths made a rowdy incursion,
But the innkeeper's timely inversion
Of two of their chairs
Took them quite unawares,
And spoiled their pub-crawling excursion.

GENIUS – GLIDE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Mad or not? - 07/04/15 02:01 PM
A genius, most people think,
Needs constant advice from a shrink.
One such used to glide
Round my college wild-eyed,
But that was entirely through drink.

SHALLOW – SHAWM
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Piercing, like its offspring the oboe - 07/05/15 01:52 AM



A shawm will be made out of wood
With a reed reinforced by a hood.*
With its double reed, shallow
It sounds rather sallow;
An ill wind that no one blows good.

*also called the “pirouette.” See Wikipedia, here,

BROMELIAD - BROWN
Posted By: May Re: Sparteye's Game - 07/06/15 02:25 PM
"Post description in bakeries, as she is a known cake eater."

King Arthur has flour, Sir Galahad;
Whole Foods offers flowers, Bromeliad.
A delicate happening, cake, chocolaty brown;
One can not wear such a heavy crown.
Nonetheless, she sighed, "Best I ever had."

[img][IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/21jr412.jpg[/img][/img]

Shucks, I didn't bring my dictionary. Would someone please pick two new words for me, in my stead? TIA wink
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Sparteye's Game - 07/06/15 03:49 PM
Since I seldom participate, not very limericky, I would not
presume, but the picture looks delicious.
Posted By: May Re: Sparteye's Game - 07/07/15 02:00 PM
Luke- I swear, the picture was not crooked when it was uploaded! Individual tastes aside, I can't vouch for certain. It did get eaten. smile Thanks.

I bought the flower arrangement not knowing that inside was a bromeliad. I was delighted, upon learning the word, to discover it's name! Plus, pineapples line the counter ($.88 each!) Always learning. Love it smile
Posted By: May Re: Sparteye's Game - 07/07/15 02:04 PM
Library - Limerick ??? Close enough for the rules?
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Searching for words - 07/08/15 01:09 PM
LIBRARY – LIMERICK

Surrounded by lexicon books,
A poet sits pensive, and cooks
New limerick verse –
Some better, some worse –
In one of his library's nooks.

BILLOW – BITUMINOUS
Posted By: May Re: Searching for words - 07/09/15 02:26 AM
A trickster ensnared by bituminous bait
Thought, I'll be damned If I let this seal my fate.
Not pitching a fit, his wit did billow.
Off through the thicket to his home in the willow,
He left fox to contemplate viscous flow rate.
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Searching for words - 08/04/15 11:25 AM
Y'know, May, it kinda kills the game when you don't post new words.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Searching for words - 08/04/15 01:43 PM
Let me suggest the following:

HIRED – HOKUM
Posted By: wofahulicodoc with apologies to Al Capp - 08/04/15 04:27 PM

I hired this fella named Yokum
But his resume seems to be hokum
He sings a nice song
But he sleeps all day long
And he doesn't wake up till I poke 'im!

REVENUE - RIBALDRY
Posted By: May Re: Searching for words - 08/04/15 07:46 PM
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator
Y'know, May, it kinda kills the game when you don't post new words.


Terribly sorry, still no dictionary and have been too lazy to go to the library.

Profuse thanks for the offered words in my stead. Will curb my enthusiasm to play until I can procure a hard copy.
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Enthuse away... - 08/04/15 08:07 PM

(Psst...if you don't have a hard copy of anything handy, and you make up two words that are reasonably close to each other, nobody will know. Shh!)
Posted By: May Re: Enthuse away... - 08/05/15 09:10 PM
Much Obliged, Wofahulicodoc.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Divine wrath - 08/10/15 12:24 PM
REVENUE – RIBALDRY

A gift-card firm's revenue fell
When its products became hard to sell,
For the cards' saucy jokes
Enraged godly folks:
"Such ribaldry sends you to Hell!"

OPENER – OTHERWISE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Accentuate the positive - 08/17/15 04:57 PM

OPENER - OTHERWISE

A Cockney, of mood antiseptic,
Of my claim of "gourmet" was a skeptic.
I can open 'er up
So on rations we sup
But in all otherwise he's dyspeptic


(I think I'm out of practice)
STRAIN - STRETCH
Posted By: Tromboniator Critics' chorus - 08/18/15 08:29 PM
Writing limericks is often a strain,
And to read them can cause some folks pain.
When the syntax we stretch
Cause we sticklers to retch,
And to call out for us to refrain.

(You're not alone.)
STEEPEN – STEREO
Posted By: May Re: Critics' chorus - 08/19/15 12:12 AM
B. Cereus, haha. Saw this today at school. Cryptosporidium is my project.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3VH066FYDWk/Urcux8XXiyI/AAAAAAAABfo/iBOkHBwU9OU/s1600/bcer.png

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/52.../1396433676400/
Posted By: wofahulicodoc B Cereus, et al. - 08/20/15 01:47 AM

So you would call Argus Filch, Filius Flitwick, Rubeus Hagrid, House-elves, Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey, Severus Snape, Pomona Sprout, Sybill Trelawney and the whole crew "Staph Albus" ?
Posted By: May Re: B Cereus, et al. - 08/20/15 11:28 PM
What do you mean? (An African or European swallow?) Hmmmmmm. Yes?
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Acoustic adjustment - 08/21/15 12:52 AM
STEEPEN – STEREO

To steepen the contrast of tone
That comes from the left and right zone,
This gadget desyncs
The lateral links
Attached to your stereophone.

RARITY – RASP
Posted By: wofahulicodoc (I was just trying to B. Subtilis) - 08/21/15 01:44 AM

Originally Posted By: May
What do you mean? (An African or European swallow?) Hmmmmmm. Yes?

Only if you mistake the heavily laden swallow for Albus Dumbledore's phoenix...
Posted By: May Re: (I was just trying to B. Subtilis) - 08/22/15 01:22 PM
Albus, being a known headmaster, the facultative discussion wasn't lost on me. Too cute. blush I loved pathology and the Harry Potter series. wink
Posted By: wofahulicodoc or vulgarity, for that matter - 08/31/15 01:03 AM

RARITY - RASP

Our limericks come with such rarity,
And they show a profound lack of clarity.
With a rasp in our voice
Do we now make a choice
Among grossness, or sex, or hilarity...


REPARTEE - REVOKE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Arch bishops - 09/03/15 10:32 PM
The Church was induced to revoke
Its ban on archbishops who joke.
Since then, on TV,
We've heard repartee
From sundry episcopal folk.

CANDLE – CAPACIOUS
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Dilapidated state - 09/20/15 12:39 PM
They told me the house was capacious,
But sadly that claim was fallacious.
The doors had no handle,
The light was by candle,
And floorboards were missing. Good gracious!

FERRY – FEVERISH
Posted By: Tromboniator Rehab - 09/21/15 06:53 AM
The Exxon Valdez – now a ferry –
Transports those more cheapskate than wary.
At the bridge, dude is feverish,
Runs her over a beaver –squish!
But no oil's spilled: it's sanitary.

GOUGE – GRAIN
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Repressive measures - 10/05/15 12:11 PM
In Ivan the Terrible's reign,
Your views had to go with the grain.
If the Tsar or his minions
Disliked your opinions,
They'd gouge out a chunk of your brain.

TIGHTROPE – TINNY
Posted By: wofahulicodoc charms to soothe a savage breast... - 10/08/15 02:13 AM
...not.

An aspiring conductor named Ginny
Had a musical ear that was tinny.
And she flew in a pet
When her best review yet
Called her "...certainly no Toscanini!"

HAPPILY - HAZARDOUS


Edit: Wha? No tightrope! Never mind. I'll try again later.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: charms to soothe a savage breast... - 10/09/15 12:45 PM
An aspiring conductor named Ginny
Had a musical ear that was tinny.
A tightrope performer
Called down through a dormer:
"That noise makes me wobble, you ninny!"

HAPPILY – HAZARDOUS
Yeah, like that.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Dangerous sport - 10/20/15 12:10 PM
I heard a spectator exclaim:
"This rugby's a hazardous game!
But back in my day,
I'd happily play –
We were light, and the risks weren't the same".

FLANK – FLOORBOARD
Posted By: Tromboniator Getaway from it all - 10/26/15 11:52 PM
The car hurtled out from the bank,
Scraped the brick wall on its starboard flank.
Its speed was untoward;
Wheelman hit the floorboard
With his wingtips, so utterly swank.

BELITTLE – BEND
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Too speedy - 10/29/15 03:00 PM
BELITTLE – BEND

I'm loath to belittle your driving,
But you went rather fast when arriving.
When you drove round that bend,
My hair stood on end –
Slow down if you want to keep thriving.

MAUDLIN – MEDDLE
Posted By: Rainmaker Re: Too speedy - 11/02/15 08:11 PM
In matters most maudlin he'd meddle,
He'd love to go stir up the kettle.
When hearing of trouble,
He comes on the double
To offer his own ills for peddle.

MONTANE - MOOT
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Unsuitable conditions - 11/05/15 02:03 PM
Don't wonder, in cool montane climes,
If you'd better grow lemons or limes;
The question is moot,
For those kinds of fruit
Won't thrive (it's been tried many times).

GLORIOUS – GNOMIC
Posted By: Tromboniator Marx the spot - 11/09/15 03:17 AM
There is much in the world that is glorious,
Like the music of Michael Praetorius.
There is poetry gnomic,
There's the River Potomac,
And of course there is Groucho – uproarious!

BALL – BAMBOOZLER
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Wrong-footing the enemy - 11/10/15 02:12 PM
The bamboozler is much to the fore
In business, in sport, and in war.
He can feint with the ball,
Or make his foes stall
As he gets them to storm the wrong shore.

ILLOGICAL – IMBUED
Posted By: May Re: Wrong-footing the enemy - 08/20/16 11:53 AM
Her stance was illogical,
Under the moon, more magical.
The darkness imbued
What the story construed.
Yes! She is ideological.

Pragmatic - ?

Would someone, please, find the proper word to pair with pragmatic?
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Wrong-footing the enemy - 09/09/16 01:27 AM
How about…
PRAGMATIC – PRECINCT ?
Posted By: may2point0 Re: Wrong-footing the enemy - 09/10/16 04:11 PM
Originally Posted By: Tromboniator
How about…
PRAGMATIC – PRECINCT ?


Thank you Tromboniator
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Re: Wrong-footing the enemy - 09/10/16 09:41 PM

PRAGMATIC - PRECINCT

The precinct cops came to my attic
They freed me with drawn automatic
"Don't care how you got there
As long as your not there!"
That's what I call being pragmatic.

CARIBOU - CAUTION


FWIW Department - the two words are nominally from any handy dictionary or equivalent, chosen by opening to a random page and taking the Index first and last words from the top. (I suspect if you chose any two reasonably-close-together words at random, no one would notice or question your source...that also is being pragmatic.)


And -- nice to see your keystrokes again.
Posted By: Tromboniator Beware the reindeer - 09/20/16 10:31 AM
You shouldn't eat raw caribou,
'cause its nutritive benefits? Few.
You'd have to use caution,
Or you'd end up washin'
Your clothing of vile, hairy spew.

COMBUSTION – COMMERCE

Okay, horrid verse, but after 35 years living in the environs, this summer I finally saw caribou in the Kenai River flats.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Beware the reindeer - 09/20/16 04:09 PM
Heck, Peter, we have caribou in our zoo!
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: Beware the reindeer - 09/21/16 10:22 PM
I forgot to mention "natural habitat". Silly me.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Beware the reindeer - 09/22/16 03:20 AM
I have visions of you out all over the tundra
pursuing herds of caribou just to see them
in their natural habitat.

I think I'll discuss this with Candy.
Posted By: wofahulicodoc "gonfalons fustian" ??? - 09/30/16 05:06 PM
Yup.

COMBUSTION – COMMERCE

My float in the Easter Parade
Would win prizes in "Commerce and Trade"
(Except, the combustion
of its gonfalons fustian
Ensured it could never be made)

GENERAL - GIANT
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Down with the tyrant - 10/25/16 02:41 AM
The chief of the tribe was a giant
Whose people were cowed and compliant;
But when some young rebels
Attacked him with pebbles,
The general mood grew defiant.

DUCKLING – DUNE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Way off course - 12/27/16 03:08 AM
A duckling whose sense of location
Went wrong in the course of migration
Collapsed on a dune
In the desert one noon,
And made vain attempts at natation.

IRRITATE – ISOLATION
Posted By: may2point0 Re: Way off course - 12/28/16 04:19 PM
The smart chick did not easily irritate.
Mind at ease revealed it's never too late.
Isolation iin her brave, sparkly dwelling,
Melted her heart and it began swelling.

Flummoxed - flute
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Deus ex machina - 12/29/16 12:55 PM
It flummoxed the plucky young coot
To hear an ethereal flute.
'Twas the pipes played by Pan,
Whose magic began
To guide it along the right route.

SEVERAL – SIGNPOST
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Deus ex machina - 12/29/16 04:47 PM
Originally Posted By: A C Bowden
It flummoxed the plucky young coot
To hear an ethereal flute.
'Twas the pipes played by Pan,
Whose magic began
To guide it along the right route.

SEVERAL – SIGNPOST





grin
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Disoriented - 01/09/17 03:28 AM
A signpost which faced the wrong way
Led several drivers astray.
A Model T flivver
Fell into the river,
And onlookers sighed with dismay.

KILTER – KITE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Cure for depression - 01/16/17 10:13 PM
KILTER – KITE

To those whose existence has grown out of kilter,
Who view the whole world through a gloomy brown filter:
Go fly a kite till anxiety passes,
Then you'll see life through rose-coloured glasses.

DIGRESS – DIMMER
Posted By: may2point0 Profanum - 01/17/17 02:56 AM
The rate at which we digress
Allows turbulent diffusion to profess,
Chatter from a dimensionless glimmer.
As we speak, the prospects seem dimmer.

Plenum- Plexus
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Deep thoughts - 01/24/17 02:28 PM
A theology student from Texas
Said: "God's threefold form is a nexus β€”
A plenum of Being,
All-knowing, all-seeing β€”
A dense ontological plexus".

RENAISSANCE – REPEL

An artist must sometimes rebel
And his many detractors repel
No Renaissance painting
Had teenagers fainting
But even the fakes will resell

MEGALOMANIA - MERETRICIOUS

Honi soit...


D'j'ever notice how "rebel" the noun and "rebel" the verb are the same letters, but pronounced differently?
yes

to 'lead' someone, and the mineral 'lead'

And Polish and polish, and a few other sets. But those are mostly very different words that happen to spell the same, but rebel and rebel have the same root.

Read and read are different tenses of the same verb, and they do it too.
Posted By: A C Bowden OK, here's a Double-Dactyl - 02/04/17 01:44 PM
MEGALOMANIA – MERETRICIOUS

Caesar Augustus, the
First Roman emperor,
Pacified rebels with
Pomp and display.

Statues reflected his
Megalomania;
Though meretricious, they
Showed he held sway.

VIOL – VOCAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: The king's music - 02/13/17 10:04 AM
In seventeenth-century France
The royals enjoyed a good dance,
With riffs on the viol
In true Baroque style,
And vocal additions, perchance.

LOGO – LOUNGE
Posted By: Tromboniator Re: The king's music - 02/19/17 07:18 AM
I tried to design a new logo,
But time after time it was no go.
I would pace and I'd lounge,
Through my brain I would scrounge,
But it all looked like Walt Kelly's Pogo.

GRAIN - GRANT


It has been a while, but I can accept harsh criticism!
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: The king's music - 02/19/17 05:36 PM
Don't give up, I love mine.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Quaint building - 03/02/17 04:00 AM
GRAIN – GRANT

There was an old mill by a lane,
Which processed small volumes of grain.
The miller, called Grant,
Would not buy new plant,
Though the mill cost a lot to maintain.

POUR – PRACTICAL
Posted By: Tromboniator Size matters - 03/05/17 12:42 AM
The field marshal's dreamy and practical,
Wages wars both strategic and tactical.
His battle groups pour
'Cross the living room floor
In wars minuscule and galactical.

QUEEN – QUICK
Posted By: wofahulicodoc futility - 03/07/17 04:06 PM

QUEEN - QUICK

The King might be quick with a pen
But the Queen's even better, as when
She wrote fables about
Humpty's sad turnabout
Despite the King's horses and men.

LIVELIHOOD - LOSE
Posted By: Tromboniator It ain't just booze - 03/13/17 04:31 AM
Tending bar was his main livelihood,
Pop psychiatrist who understood.
Folks with nothing to lose
Came to tipple and schmooze.
Lousy wages, but tips rather good.

ESCAPEMENT – ESTATE
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Drought crisis - 03/13/17 04:54 AM
If your livelihood wholly depends
On the seasonal rain that descends,
You're sure to lose sleep
And plaintively weep
If a long summer dry spell extends.

Oops β€” Tromboniator beat me to it!
Posted By: wofahulicodoc you broke it, you own it - 03/17/17 08:31 PM

ESCAPEMENT – ESTATE

My priceless watch broke its escapement
When it fell from its niche in the basement.
I don't need to relate
How I trashed my Estate
By not knowing what "Double-Stick-Tape" meant.

(needs work, but better than silence...)


PIKEMAN - PITCH
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: The fog of war - 03/23/17 01:02 AM
As the fight reached a furious pitch,
A pikeman stood close to a ditch
And dealt a hard blow
To a friend or a foe;
The fog made it hard to tell which.

TOUR/TRIBAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Religious strife - 04/04/17 12:49 AM
The tour guide said: "Folks here are tribal –
They fight about words in the Bible.
If you cast an aspersion
On one group's pet version,
They'll probably sue you for libel".

CATTLE – CENTURY
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: In the Hundred Years' War - 04/14/17 12:26 AM
A mid-fourteenth-century farm
In France was at risk of great harm;
The slaughter of cattle
In Anglo-French battle
Caused many poor peasants alarm.

CHORE – CHUCKLE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Meanwhile, closer to home... - 04/14/17 01:04 AM

CHORE – CHUCKLE

If you're loath to take care of that chore
You'll dislike finding out what's in store...
Did I just hear you chuckle?
Here's a fistful of knuckle
And then you can clean up next door.

PERENNIAL- PHOTOGRAPH


Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Seeking attention - 04/15/17 11:22 PM
The perennial urge to be viewed,
In fine or rough raiment, or nude,
Too frequently means
We photograph scenes
Where posturing strangers intrude.

MEADOW – MICROSCOPIC

In the meadow of Madame Defarge
She knit codes, microscopic and large,
And the info they said
Caused the family's head
To be sent off to sea on a barge.

SPECTRUM - SPLASH
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Chromatic arc - 05/04/17 02:07 PM
A rainbow's a spectrum of hues
Creating magnificent views.
Though raindrops may splash
And hailstones may crash,
Its beauty awakens my Muse.

INFLUENCE – INGEST
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Appealing to the eye - 05/19/17 01:00 PM
The influence wielded by cooks
Who star on TV and write books
Makes diners ingest
Not food that tastes best,
But fare that is judged by its looks.

DARTBOARD – DAZZLING
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: On the oche - 06/17/17 01:45 AM
Though the dartboard had seen better days,
The players gave dazzling displays.
One-seventy-four
Was their average score,
Which merits exceptional praise.

HOBBY – HOLE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc ...said Lionel Mouse - 06/17/17 05:12 PM

Miniatures

My passion for trains very small
I indulge in a hole in the wall.
So it's not in the lobby
I follow my hobby
You hardly can see them at all.

GAUZY - GNAT
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Firm response - 06/19/17 12:24 AM
A woman discovered a gnat
On the gauzy white band of her hat.
With a resolute air,
She rose from her chair
And struck the thing dead with a bat.

TEMPLAR – TEUTONIC
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Fighting for the faith - 07/16/17 02:07 AM
Some 'soldiers of Christ' were Teutonic,
While others were French or Slavonic.
The famous Knights Templar
Were one more exemplar
Of fierce holy zeal, which was chronic.

REALIST – REND
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Dispassionate view - 08/04/17 02:23 AM
In war, the antagonists rend
The structures on which we depend.
But despite all the woes,
The realist knows
That peace will return in the end.

GULF - GUST
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Ill wind - 08/09/17 12:26 PM
GULF – GUST

A ship from the Persian Gulf area
Was in the Black Sea near Bulgaria,
When a gust from the East
Arrived like a beast,
Infecting the crew with malaria.

FETCH – FICTITIOUS
Posted By: wofahulicodoc I was a bit Leary of posting this - 11/17/17 02:39 AM

A vicious fictitious old whale
Ordered "Fetch me some fish in a pail!
Or else, why then I'll"
(Added he with a smile)
"Whup you upside the head with my tail!"


PICKEREL - PONY


("It isn't brains, because You-Know-Why, Rabbit," said Pooh, "but it comes to me sometimes...")
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Natural selection - 11/20/17 03:06 AM
The pickerel, peacock and pony,
Invertebrate creatures and bony,
All sprang from mutation,
Not godly creation -
To talk of 'design' is baloney.

SAFEGUARD - SAILCLOTH
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Safety measure - 12/01/17 01:31 PM
On hearing a forecast of gales,
The crew had to take down the sails
To safeguard the ship,
Lest the sailcloth should rip
And lure hungry sharks or blue whales.

NATURE - NAY
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Alpha males - 12/12/17 01:53 AM
By nature, some men are aggressive;
Their wives find them fiercely possessive.
If someone says 'Yea',
They are apt to shout 'Nay!'
Or phrases more plainly expressive.

CRAMPED - CREAM
Posted By: wofahulicodoc cold storage - 12/22/17 12:33 AM

The cream to be stored in a cruet
Was so cramped by the crocks full of suet
That when more room was needed
(Shelf space was exceeded)
We wondered just how they would do it!

FLAGON - FLEET
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: A strange story - 12/29/17 02:15 AM
I dreamed of a tortoise so fleet
That it chased a large dog down the street.
Along came a dragon
Which drank from a flagon,
Then swallowed my pet parakeet.

DESOLATE - DETACH
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Limericks rock ! - 12/29/17 04:21 PM
Don't know whether you know about the OEDILF...

This AP bulletin was published in many papers today. Must be a slow news day.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Limericks rock ! - 12/30/17 01:01 PM
Originally Posted by wofahulicodoc
Don't know whether you know about the OEDILF...

No, I hadn't heard about it. Thanks.
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Stormy weather - 01/04/18 01:59 PM
DESOLATE - DETACH

If you live on a desolate plain,
Assailed by tempestuous rain,
The wind may detach
A roof made of thatch,
But a flat concrete one will remain.

PASSENGER - PASTEL
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: No train? No strain - 01/10/18 01:30 AM
PASSENGER - PASTEL

A passenger survey once found
That the tension of waiting around
Could be somewhat allayed
If stations displayed
Pink text on a pastel blue ground.

REJOIN - REMEDIAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Naval exigency - 01/20/18 04:13 AM
Some sailors, ashore for some pleasure,
Got a message curtailing their leisure:
"Rejoin your ship now!
There's a crack in the bow,
And we need some remedial measure".

UNIT - UNLEASH
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Andy Weir would be proud - 02/08/18 02:46 AM

The unit of rocket-ship payload
Is more than a bale or a hayload.
Unleashed Falcon to Mars
And we send Tesla cars
(Should have been not a red but a grey load).

APPLE - APPLICATION
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Eat wisely - 02/09/18 03:40 AM
Good health needs the strict application
Of sensible alimentation.
"An apple a day
Keeps the doctor away"
Is a very sound recommendation.

ROBUST - ROLLER
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Inferior equipment - 02/18/18 03:57 AM
The printers were really nonplussed
When a roller collapsed due to rust.
Their boss said: "It seems
That to shift all these reams
We need something much more robust".

ANOMALY - ANTENNA
Posted By: wofahulicodoc today is Sunday - 02/18/18 05:03 PM

I thought I detected anomaly
When the preacher delivered his homily
My antenna perked up -
Sanctimonious pup
Had ignored all the values of family

BUTTE - CALAMITY

(Don't laugh - the previous page goes from BUM to BUTT...honest.!)
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Freak accident - 03/01/18 12:54 AM
There was a young army recruit
To whom the instructor said: "Shoot!"
Calamity struck,
And he died through bad luck
When his shot ricocheted off a butte.

ENDING - ENHARMONIC

Be sharp and see more than platonic
In a lover who's not catatonic
Pick a musical school
And I guarantee you'll
Have a marriage that's most enharmonic !

SCROLL - SECRET

(I'll ignore an earlier page which - really - goes from "mentis gratissimus error" to "meum et teum" !)
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Oops! There's no ENDING to that! - 03/01/18 02:13 AM
Try again.

Be sharp and see more than platonic
With a lover who's not catatonic
Actions chanteusical
Lead to a musical
Ending that's most enharmonic.


SCROLL - SECRET
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: Successful codebreaking - 03/06/18 01:39 AM
A scroll from an old hypogeum
Beneath an austere mausoleum
Had secret inscriptions
Whose clever encryptions
Were solved at the British Museum.

NIGHTLY - NITROGEN
Posted By: wofahulicodoc it’s a real gasser - 03/06/18 02:07 AM

β€œIt’s not easy to laugh,” he said brightly,
β€œSo I practice it just about nightly.
I bring my boat dockside,
Breathe nitrogen oxide.
Here, try some!” he offered politely.

AMBIENT - APERTURE
Posted By: A C Bowden Two holes are better than one - 03/26/18 03:23 AM
One aperture may not suffice
To empty a can in a trice.
If the ambient air
Keeps the liquid in there,
The can must be pierced at least twice.

MERMAID - METHOD
Posted By: A C Bowden Mythical natation - 04/03/18 03:28 AM
A mermaid can swim like a fish;
Her tail makes a powerful swish.
But her method of movement
Is quite an improvement -
Her arms can be flexed at her wish.

MARGRAVE - MARZIPAN
Posted By: wofahulicodoc No accounting for taste - 04/10/18 08:11 PM

A female Margrave (and Dutchess)
Sought post-prandial sweets to eat, such as
Some chocolate brandy
Or marzipan candy.
You're Danish? Stay out of her clutches!

POINTLESS - PORCELAIN
Posted By: A C Bowden Re: No accounting for taste - 04/11/18 12:09 AM
Originally Posted by wofahulicodoc
A female Margrave

That is to say, a Margravine...


And here's one I did earlier today:

A margrave declared to a lackey:
I'll eat something novel and snacky".
"This marzipan, Sire,
Is what you require",
Said the cook; "it's exotic and wacky".
Posted By: wofahulicodoc ...cannot do better - 04/11/18 04:06 PM

Quite similar in spirit, aren't they.

A (very) brief peek via Google reveals that the post of Margrave was generally
restricted to males. Ah well - chalk it up to Authors' License.

And I didn't realize until after posting that the rhyme was inspired by G&S -
"...In short, if you'd kindle/The spark of a swindle..." from Gondoliers.
Posted By: A C Bowden Informed opinion - 04/14/18 12:20 AM
POINTLESS - PORCELAIN

A well-known antiques connoisseur
Remarked with an expert's hauteur:
"Your porcelain bowl
Has this pointless small hole -
A quirk that was once de rigueur".

DRAINED - DRIFTED
Posted By: A C Bowden No winner - 04/19/18 01:00 AM
A few hundred yards still remained,
And both sets of oarsmen felt drained.
They drifted so wide
They were disqualified.
"Void race!" cried the ref, looking pained.

EDIFY - EFFUSIVE
Posted By: A C Bowden Food for the soul - 04/24/18 01:42 AM
If you're eager to edify sinners
Or people who beg for hot dinners,
Be warm and effusive -
Say "Joy is elusive,
But Jesus loves losers, not winners".

ROGUISH - ROOF
Posted By: wofahulicodoc on the other hand... - 04/24/18 08:55 PM


If you wish in this world to advance
Your merits you're bound to enhance
You must stir it and stump it
And blow your own trumpet
Or trust me you haven't a chance!

(--You-know-who)
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Always put de horse before Descartes - 04/24/18 09:11 PM

(...and as long as I'm recycling other people's lines)

We knew roguish RenΓ© was aloof,
Took a mugful of ale to the roof.
"Will you chug the whole lot?"
When he said, "I think not!"
Why, he vanished away with a Pouf!

OVERWHELMED - PALATE
Posted By: A C Bowden Wonderful concoction - 04/26/18 12:59 AM
At first I was rather suspicious -
I thought your cuisine too ambitious.
But every small bite
Gave my palate delight.
I'm quite overwhelmed. It's delicious!

LORDSHIP - LOUDSPEAKER
Posted By: A C Bowden All visitors should now leave - 05/08/18 12:32 AM
Loudspeakers on battlements blared:
"His Lordship the Duke has declared
That he's now indisposed,
So this castle is closed".
Some tourists' annoyance was aired.

CRASS - CREVASSE
Posted By: A C Bowden Insensitive reaction - 05/16/18 12:52 AM
Eight ill-prepared climbers, en masse,
Fell down an uncharted crevasse.
To say "Serves them right!",
On hearing their plight,
Would sound unforgivably crass.

ORBITAL - OUTLAST
Posted By: wofahulicodoc well, "is," if you must - 05/26/18 02:01 AM

Oops! He spilled his solution of sorbitol
And the sponge somehow wouldn't absorb it all.
Now all science he nixes
Small Engines he fixes
'Cuz not all mechanics are orbital!

Oops - no OUTLAST in that one. Let's do it again:

At NASA they had a big fight
About satellites' orbital height.
Then they'd argue - and drink -
And raise a big stink
About who'd outlast whom in a fight.

LULLABY - MAGAZINE
Posted By: A C Bowden Sing something stronger - 06/04/18 01:40 AM
A lullaby might be too mild
For a loud, hyperactive young child,
But something by Queen
From a rock magazine
May prove more acceptably wild.

GAMING - GARRULOUS
Posted By: A C Bowden Silence is golden - 06/17/18 01:54 AM
In gaming, success isn't free;
Intense concentration is key.
A garrulous boozer
Is always a loser,
As any observer can see.

DIAGRAM - DIFFICULT
Posted By: A C Bowden As clear as mud - 06/22/18 02:02 AM
The diagram drawn to explain
The work flow was dense and arcane.
Achieving a pass
In that difficult class
Drove management students insane.

BITTEREST - BLANK
Posted By: A C Bowden Pons asinorum - 06/28/18 12:50 PM
A physicist born in Darjeeling
Now lived in west London, in Ealing.
When he studied Max Planck
His mind went a blank,
Which gave him the bitterest feeling.

TECHNICAL - TENACIOUSLY
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Sparteye's Game II - 06/28/18 03:50 PM
Two thumbs up: been there done that. crazy
Posted By: A C Bowden Nerves of steel - 07/04/18 01:21 PM
TECHNICAL - TENACIOUSLY

Tenaciously, and with aplomb,
A sapper defused a large bomb.
His technical skill
And firmness of will
Caused watchers to mutter: "Quel homme!"

GRAPPLE - GRIFFIN
Posted By: A C Bowden In days of yore - 07/07/18 02:06 AM
A questing knight errant's advance
Was checked when a griffin, by chance,
Appeared near a pit;
They grappled a bit,
Then the knight slew the beast with his lance.

PANIC - PARAGRAPH
Posted By: Tromboniator Teaed off. - 07/17/18 05:34 AM
A writer chap nearly got fired
For a paragraph more than inspired:
He’d a cuppa so tannic
It engendered near panic
In prose that was too hot for Wired.

CHROMOSOME – CIAO

Ick! I’m so rusty!
Posted By: A C Bowden Speaking in tongues - 07/19/18 04:31 AM
A rogue chromosome that I've got
Has made me a real xenoglot.
I'll be talking, then bingo!
Out comes some strange lingo,
Like 'ciao', 'entre nous', and such rot.

FRAGMENT - FROG
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Speaking in tongues - 07/19/18 03:58 PM
Originally Posted by Tromboniator
A writer chap nearly got fired
For a paragraph more than inspired:
He’d a cuppa so tannic
It engendered near panic
In prose that was too hot for Wired.

CHROMOSOME – CIAO

Ick! I’m so rusty!



Still much better than I can do.
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Speaking in tongues - 07/19/18 04:00 PM
Originally Posted by A C Bowden
A rogue chromosome that I've got
Has made me a real xenoglot.
I'll be talking, then bingo!
Out comes some strange lingo,
Like 'ciao', 'entre nous', and such rot.

FRAGMENT - FROG




Me too, probably because we spend so much time on this site and others trying to master PIE.
Posted By: Tromboniator Dead letter? - 07/21/18 02:53 AM
Archaeologist posted his blog:
β€œFound a fragment of text in a bog.”
Years of stymied translation
Led to his revelation
That it’s really the corpse of a frog.

BELITTLE-BEND
Posted By: A C Bowden No Uri Geller... - 07/24/18 02:22 PM
I try to bend spoons with my mind,
But people are often unkind:
"Your psychokinetic
Attempts are pathetic!"
I'm often belittled, I find.

GRAVEL - GREENGAGE
Posted By: A C Bowden Poor fare - 08/01/18 02:21 AM
An inn near the end of our travel
On byways of grass, mud and gravel
Served dry, tasteless ham
And sour greengage jam,
But we were too hungry to cavil.

REINS - RELIANT
Posted By: A C Bowden It served him right - 08/10/18 01:26 PM
A highwayman rode over plains
With his takings secured to the reins.
Reliant on speed,
He goaded his steed
Till it threw him and trampled his brains.

DIZZY - DODO
Posted By: A C Bowden Ruthless extinction - 08/16/18 12:50 PM
DIZZY - DODO

The dodo, which lived in Mauritius,
Was placid, and not at all vicious;
Then hunters got busy
And made it feel dizzy.
The urge to control is pernicious.

CENTRAL - CEREMONIAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Pomp and circumstance - 08/20/18 03:02 PM
The Queen's coronation was grand;
The central events were well planned.
Ceremonial skill
And punctilious drill
Are old royal strengths in this land.

SHIPWRECK - SHORTLY
Posted By: A C Bowden No sorcery involved - 08/29/18 12:24 AM
"We will shortly observe", said the guide,
"The rock where a hundred men died.
The shipwreck was tragic,
But claims of black magic
Have always been hotly denied."

LUBRICATE - LUNCHTIME
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Re: No sorcery involved - 08/29/18 01:02 AM
Aha! Clearly the theme will be three martinis…
Posted By: A C Bowden Different tastes - 08/31/18 01:24 AM
LUBRICATE - LUNCHTIME

At lunchtime, I find milky tea
Sufficient to lubricate me.
My friends enjoy wine
Or gin when they dine -
One guy likes a blend of all three.

WEEPING - WELLINGTON
Posted By: A C Bowden National hero - 09/15/18 03:04 AM
When Wellington won Waterloo
By vanquishing Bonaparte's crew,
The weeping was drowned
By a great cheering sound.
They made him Prime Minister too.

RHAPSODY - RIBBONS
Posted By: A C Bowden Doing what suited him - 09/30/18 12:51 AM
I saw Liberace once play
A rhapsody based on My Way.
He wore a gold suit,
With ribbons so cute
That they shook when he reached to top A.

CUMBERSOME - CUPOLA
Posted By: A C Bowden Tasteless design - 10/04/18 12:13 AM
There are some architectural styles
That many a critic reviles,
Like a cupola built
At a ten-degree tilt,
Or a cumbersome slab seen for miles.

ASHLAR - ASPHALT
Posted By: A C Bowden Blot on the landscape - 10/12/18 01:42 AM
Continual urbanization
Has spoiled this once peaceful location.
There are few things so drab
As a fake ashlar slab
Or asphalt, in my estimation.

DUBBED - DUMMY
Posted By: A C Bowden Scottish/English double act - 01/31/19 01:37 AM
Ventriloquists 'speak from their tummy'
(Or so the word means), while their dummy
Moves his or her lips
To make merry quips.
One pair were dubbed 'Jock and the Brummie'.

LUG - LUMINOUS
Posted By: wofahulicodoc How susceptible! - 01/31/19 02:05 AM

I will lug to the top of the mount
My scope's equatorial mount
To catalog Mars
And the luminous stars
But I fear they're too many to count.

SECRETARY - SERGEANT

[If needed, refer to Iolanthe, Finale, Act I, for a guide to pronunciation.]
Posted By: A C Bowden A question of rank - 02/02/19 05:07 AM
The Queen's secretary confessed:
"These protocol points make me stressed.
If, near the equator,
Some sergeant-dictator
Takes power, how's the bastard addressed?"

TOPPLE - TORPOR

Louis XIV and XVI of France
Tried their wives' private lives to enhance
As they ditched the two Lous
In two loos in Toulouse
To avoid being looked at askance


(With four β€œto”s and four β€œloo”s to use I just couldn’t resist)
((Even without the key words))
Posted By: A C Bowden Different traditions - 02/07/19 04:13 AM
TOPPLE - TORPOR

The French like a good revolution,
To topple an old constitution.
The conservative British
Regard this as skittish;
Their torpor prevents that solution.

CYNOSURE - DACHSHUND
Posted By: A C Bowden Haughty hound - 02/16/19 03:06 AM
There were many fine dogs at the show,
But the true cynosure – le plus beau –
Was a dachshund, whose mien
Was so proud and serene
It impressed the most jaded old pro.

STRATHSPEY - STRIDENT
Posted By: A C Bowden Highland pride - 03/27/19 01:35 PM
Though pipers will happily play
A strident Scots reel or strathspey,
They're often less keen
On God Save the Queen,
But Flower of Scotland's OK.

COWSLIPS – CULVERT
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Nothing related to cowslip or culverts - 03/30/19 01:13 PM

...but with the understanding that Spa is a town in Belgium, I offer

HergΓ©'s comic's in French up in Spa
Where they laugh "HΓ©-hΓ©-hΓ©!" not "Ha-Ha!"
Might be plain or be fanthy -
Or mock Iolanthe
(Brass band playing Tin-Tin-ta-ra!)
Posted By: A C Bowden Près de la source - 03/31/19 01:38 PM
From a culvert where it was concealed,
A Spa stream emerged in a field
Where cowslips were found
And Francophones clowned.
Now the source of their mirth is revealed.

MODEST – MODULATION
Posted By: A C Bowden Signs of genius - 04/09/19 01:39 AM
Musicians of modest ability
Admire great composers' facility
For smooth modulation,
Refined orchestration,
And feats of melodic agility.

ENCROACH – ENERGETIC
Posted By: A C Bowden Too hectic - 04/18/19 11:40 AM
Some cities are most energetic;
Their development pace is frenetic.
But such an approach
May sadly encroach
On the peace of a monkish ascetic.

RAVINE – REACT
Posted By: A C Bowden Left to rot - 04/23/19 04:42 AM
RAVINE – REACT

In lands where conditions are mean,
You risk falling down a ravine.
They only extract
The folk who react;
The rest they just leave at the scene.

WHALE – WHET
Posted By: A C Bowden Tricks of the trade - 05/01/19 01:14 AM
Old-timers, when hunting a whale,
Would aim at its head, not its tail.
They found it a boon
To whet each harpoon
On a rough block of sandstone or shale.

HIDALGO – HIGHLY
Posted By: A C Bowden Diss me not, sir! - 05/04/19 04:28 AM
A Spanish hidalgo or knight
Was highly averse to a slight.
If touched, he would rave:
"You insult me, you knave!
My honour demands that we fight!"

PUZZLE – QUARTET
Posted By: A C Bowden Hollow harmony - 05/10/19 02:57 AM
We're quite an ill-balanced quartet –
Three flutes and a bass clarinet.
For want of a fiddle
To strengthen the middle,
We've not solved this puzzle quite yet.

UNIQUE – UNLUCKY
Posted By: A C Bowden Soccer rivals - 05/16/19 03:06 AM
I have taken the liberty of using 'uniquely' rather than 'unique'...

The Liverpool players were plucky
But finished uniquely unlucky,
For Manchester City
Proved even more gritty.
My Scouse friend said "Life's a bitch, ducky".

RIDDLE – RISING
Posted By: A C Bowden Incorrect data - 06/11/19 03:19 AM
The weatherman said: "It's surprising
That with pressure persistently rising
The wind has such speed.
A riddle, indeed –
Or maybe this map needs revising".

LORE – LOUCHE
Posted By: A C Bowden Seedy establishment - 06/13/19 01:14 PM
Old London lore tells of a pub
Where they served dodgy liquor and grub.
Its louche clientele
Called it manna from hell
And founded the Basse Cuisine club.

SLEET – SLENDER
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Shotgun wedding - 06/13/19 07:25 PM

There was sleet in the streets of Khartoum.
Slender lass took a lad to her room.
"But," she said, "you must know
If it works out...just so...
Then my father will threaten your doom..."

INGRATE - INSIPID
Posted By: A C Bowden Mendicant with attitude - 06/16/19 01:00 AM
I once had a brief altercation
With a beggar at Waterloo station,
Because the ingrate
Sneered: "Insipid stuff, mate!"
At my cold cappuccino oblation.

PSYCHOKINETIC – PULL
Posted By: A C Bowden Another charlatan - 06/19/19 01:32 AM
He claimed to be psychokinetic,
But I found his performance pathetic.
He used a thin string
To pull everything!
Mind-power remains theoretic.

CARNATION – CARTWHEELS
Posted By: A C Bowden Vulnerable flower - 06/23/19 02:16 AM
CARNATION – CARTWHEELS

Small plants suffer much from the moves
Of tractors and cartwheels and hooves.
A poor wild carnation
Risks disintegration
If caught in vehicular grooves.

EFFORT – EKE
Posted By: A C Bowden On the home front in World War 2 - 06/30/19 03:19 AM
While making great effort to eke
Their food rations out every week,
Stout folk in all nations
Cursed wartime privations
Which slimmed down their ample physique.

RULER – RUNNER
Posted By: A C Bowden Dubious complaint - 07/06/19 12:49 AM
A runner exclaimed: "I object!
The length of this track's incorrect!"
His coach, who was cooler,
Said: "Check with a ruler.
It's just your poor sight, I expect".

LEMONADE – LETTERS
Posted By: A C Bowden Well out of date - 07/09/19 03:31 AM
I recently bought lemonade,
Then checked to see where it was made.
RHODESIA, it said
In letters of red.
No wonder the stuff had decayed.

HOSE – HOSTILITY
Posted By: A C Bowden Point of no return - 07/13/19 04:46 AM
Two neighbours, with flagrant hostility,
Made taunts of outrageous scurrility.
When one aimed his hose
At the other man's nose,
He ruled out all hope of civility.

DISTINGUISH – DIVERT
Posted By: A C Bowden Unfortunate accident - 07/22/19 01:46 AM
A pilot, when forced to divert
In the course of a safety alert,
Could not, going one way,
Distinguish the runway.
He turned around, crashed, and got hurt.

SEIZING – SERMON
Posted By: A C Bowden Keeping the place tidy - 07/26/19 02:16 AM
It was during a sermon on sin
That iconoclasts forced their way in.
The priest, seizing one,
Said: "When you're all done,
Can you put the smashed glass in a bin".

COLLECT – COLONEL
Posted By: A C Bowden Treating it seriously - 07/29/19 04:03 AM
My grandfather used to collect
Toy soldiers, and he would inspect
His precious assortment
For dress and deportment,
Then bark, like a colonel, "Correct!"

TEMPESTUOUS – TEND
Posted By: A C Bowden A wild time - 08/05/19 04:38 AM
In Rome, Carthage, Persia and Greece
The wars tended never to cease,
And people's tempestuous
(Often incestuous)
Passions allowed them no peace.

OPACITY – OPINION
Posted By: A C Bowden Heavy reading - 08/11/19 12:59 AM
Some German philosophers write
Dense tomes that give students a fright.
Their opacity muddies
Their meaning in studies
(Which, in my opinion, is slight).

LOCATION – LOG
Posted By: A C Bowden Ship of shame - 08/16/19 02:09 AM
LOCATION – LOG

A ship with a louche reputation
Was stuck in an icy location.
The captain swigged grog,
Then wrote in his log:
"We'll freeze, and then burn in damnation!"

INVENTOR – INVETERATE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Epithet - 08/30/19 01:47 AM

I knew an inveterate liar
Who claimed he’d perfected a fire
Bad inventor was he
For. β€˜twas easy to see
Flames went two inches up and no higher.

(It goes a bit against the grain, but β€œfive point oh eight centimetersβ€œ just didn’t scan...)

APPETITE - AQUARIUM
Posted By: A C Bowden Alternatively... - 08/30/19 03:44 AM
Ah, you just beat me to it! Here's what I was going to post:

An inveterate rocket inventor
Who worked at the Johnson Space Center
Denied, with a frown,
That Wernher von Braun
(Whom Hitler admired) was his mentor.
Posted By: A C Bowden It's a jungle in there - 08/31/19 11:39 AM
APPETITE – AQUARIUM

Some fish are aggressive and bite,
And some have a large appetite.
Aquarium keepers
Are apt to cry "Jeepers!"
When watching them struggle and fight.

BOUNDLESS – BOWDLERIZE
Posted By: A C Bowden Cleaning things up - 09/04/19 01:55 AM
Our forebears considered it smart
To bowdlerize great works of art,
With boundless belief
In the anguish and grief
That comes from impureness of heart.

RALLY – RAMP
Posted By: A C Bowden Playing hard - 09/07/19 01:55 PM
One coach used to rally his team
In terms that were pretty extreme.
To ramp up the tension,
He'd frequently mention
The Devil, and give a loud scream.

PERMANENT – PERSPECTIVE
Posted By: A C Bowden Theological enigma - 09/23/19 03:38 AM
From a strictly religious perspective,
God's permanent state is objective.
But if God doesn't change,
It seems rather strange,
For how could our prayers be effective?

LUBRICATE – LUDDITE
Posted By: A C Bowden Destructive acts - 10/02/19 03:09 AM
I have taken the liberty of changing 'lubricate' to 'lubricant'...

To 'sabotage' meant throwing clogs
In devices, to clog up the cogs.
Some Luddites would spoil
Any lubricant oil
With beer, or the blood of dead frogs.

TENFOLD – TEQUILA
Posted By: A C Bowden Powerful mixture - 10/06/19 03:57 AM
A blend of tequila and whiskey
Can make partygoers quite frisky.
Their sense of release
Marks a tenfold increase
In their blood flow, which may be quite risky.

HAYSTACK – HEAVEN
Posted By: A C Bowden Doomed faith - 10/10/19 03:22 AM
On seeing a haystack in Devon,
A bard wrote: "I know there's a heaven!"
Alas! Before long,
World war proved him wrong.
(He wrote it in 1911.)

BISHOP – BITTERSWEET
Posted By: A C Bowden Saved or damned? - 10/15/19 03:23 AM
BISHOP – BITTERSWEET

The sound of believers at prayer
Can take on a bittersweet air.
"The workings of God",
Said a bishop, "are odd –
We're caught between hope and despair."

FANCY – FARCICAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Low comedy - 10/18/19 03:29 AM
Some fancy the epic Greek stories
Of heroes pursuing great glories.
For me, they're too rough;
I like farcical stuff
Such as fights between Brexit-crazed Tories.

UNDERSTAND – UNFURL
Posted By: A C Bowden The awesome universe - 10/26/19 03:35 AM
The scale of the cosmos is grand;
They say it will further expand.
As galaxies whirl,
Dimensions unfurl
In ways I do not understand.

RIDER – RIVULET
Posted By: A C Bowden Equestrian mishap - 10/28/19 03:49 AM
A horse, terrified by a spider,
Careered through a field with its rider.
It splashed without care
Through a rivulet there.
Thank goodness the stream wasn't wider.

SACRED – SAFELY
Posted By: A C Bowden Accidents will happen - 11/07/19 01:00 PM
When the enemy launched an assault
On our city, we stored in a vault
A sacred gold cross
As safely as poss.
It broke, but that wasn't our fault.

ESSENTIAL – ESTER
Posted By: A C Bowden Learn it well - 11/14/19 03:43 AM
A chemistry teacher in Leicester
Explained: "I'm a rigorous tester.
It's essential at college
To probe students' knowledge
With questions like 'What is an ester?'"

LETTER – LEVELS
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Sparteye's Game II - 11/14/19 04:29 PM
laugh
Posted By: A C Bowden What a nuisance! - 11/17/19 01:44 PM
If the noise from your neighbours' night revels
Increases to deafening levels,
You can write them a letter –
The blunter the better –
To say what you think of those devils.

DEJECTED – DELUSION
Posted By: A C Bowden Oh, hell! - 11/22/19 04:39 AM
One common delusion consists
In the thought that Damnation exists.
The people affected
Become so dejected
That many strike walls with their fists.

CRUISE – CUDDLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Trouble on board - 11/24/19 01:17 PM
If you cuddle another man's wife,
It is likely to lead to some strife.
On a typical cruise,
With leisure and booze,
Such reckless behaviour is rife.

TEXTED – THEATRICAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Thespian tone - 11/30/19 01:53 AM
TEXTED – THEATRICAL

An actor friend texted me thus:
"Ah, Brexit's the ruin of us!
Alas and alack!
Our future is black!"
He makes a theatrical fuss.

HUNGER – HURLED
Posted By: A C Bowden Rural uprising - 12/06/19 05:11 AM
A picturesque village was quiet
Till hunger drove peasants to riot.
One hurled a sharp knife
At the squire and his wife
When they told him to go on a diet.

ENCOURAGE – ENDURING
Posted By: wofahulicodoc adapted from Ruddigore - 12/16/19 02:11 AM

re: "Well out of date" - July 8, I see.
Here's a slight modification (without the LETTERS):

I recently bought lemonade,
Then I checked to see when it was made.
Took a very long time
Just to get to where I'm -
No wonder the stuff had decayed!


And now, if you please, we'll proceed.
Posted By: A C Bowden Royal support - 12/19/19 02:15 AM
ENCOURAGE – ENDURING

To encourage poor folk in the Blitz
Whom stress nearly robbed of their wits,
The King and the Queen
Remained on the scene,
Enduring the Luftwaffe's hits.

HOSPITABLE – HOURLY
Posted By: A C Bowden Good Samaritans - 12/22/19 01:28 PM
Hospitable folk are a treasure;
They welcome the homeless with pleasure.
While others shrug sourly,
They throw money hourly
To beggars, and smile for good measure.

PROSPERITY – PROVED
Posted By: A C Bowden Fall and rise - 02/02/20 02:06 AM
Events have again proved the verity
That war causes debt and austerity.
With peace comes the chance
Of a rapid advance
And a welcome return to prosperity.

RAGS – RAMBLING
Posted By: A C Bowden No health, no wealth - 04/27/20 03:30 AM
Some people like vigorous rambling,
While others prefer gentle ambling.
Real idlers smoke fags
And end up in rags
Through constant indulgence in gambling.

OPENING – OPULENT
Posted By: A C Bowden Noblesse oblige - 05/02/20 01:45 AM
A duke in a Leicestershire pile
Designed in an opulent style
Earned quite a fair bit
By opening it
To the hoi polloi once in a while.

PROMPT – PROOFREAD
Posted By: LukeJavan8 Re: Sparteye's Game II - 05/02/20 03:13 PM



grin
Posted By: A C Bowden No time for quality - 05/20/20 04:15 AM
The publishing world's in a hurry;
The need to be prompt causes worry.
The schedule's too tight
To proofread books right;
The deadlines make everyone scurry.

DAMPEN – DARING
Posted By: A C Bowden Not so brave - 05/23/20 01:56 AM
DAMPEN – DARING

A stuntman, renowned for his daring,
Said: "Showing spectators I'm wearing
A safety support
Would dampen the sport,
And lead to loud catcalls and swearing".

ENRICH – ENVIRONMENT
Posted By: A C Bowden Improving the city - 05/26/20 01:48 AM
An urban environment needs
The planting of saplings and seeds
Designed to enrich
Drab thoroughfares, which
Are flanked by rough grasses and weeds.

RELIC – RELOCATE
Posted By: A C Bowden Ancient artefact - 05/31/20 04:26 AM
A French archaeologist found
An Iron Age tomb near a mound.
On account of its weight,
They could not relocate
The relic; it's still in the ground.

LEAF – LEGERDEMAIN
Posted By: A C Bowden Double blow - 06/02/20 12:34 AM
With legerdemain, the young thief
Slipped stolen cash under a leaf
Of the robbed woman's book,
Which he then also took,
Thus greatly compounding her grief.

FURTHERMORE – FUSSY
Posted By: A C Bowden Difficult customers - 06/04/20 01:57 AM
Most waiters endure fussy diners,
And calmly face privileged whiners.
They cope, furthermore,
With insults galore,
And come back with witty one-liners.

MILDEW – MILLER
Posted By: A C Bowden Trouble at the mill - 06/17/20 04:07 AM
A miller despondently said:
"It's one of those times that I dread.
There's slime in the flour,
The milk has turned sour,
And mildew has ruined the bread".

SHEET – SHELLFISH
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Variation on the Theme - 07/01/20 11:29 AM

I give you the LIMERIKU, from facebook, via Paul Bickart, via Peter Ellis, via @GaryTwisted and @bellingman:

There was a young man
From Peru, whose Lim'ricks all
Looked like haiku. He

Said with a laugh, "I
Cut them in half - the pay is
Much better for two.”
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Over the Bounding Main - 07/19/20 06:24 PM

Said a sailor, too slow in the heat,
"To get home I should let out the sheet
Then I'll sell all my shellfish -
Don't need to be selfish -
To that restauranteur in Wellfleet!"


TRUISM - TURTLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Necessary truth - 07/27/20 01:11 AM
'A turtle's a turtle' is true,
As I'm sure every one of you knew.
But a truism's truth
Needs no eagle-eyed sleuth
To establish it; logic will do.

DEMERSAL – DEMISE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Unnecessary truth - 07/27/20 03:23 PM

Demersal fish live near the bottom
I fished with a trawl net, and caught 'em
Now some species' demise
Is in front of our eyes
(But you want cod or halibut? Got 'em!)

SERIAL - SET
Posted By: A C Bowden Bygone days - 08/01/20 12:58 AM
SERIAL – SET

When Britain was proudly imperial,
As I saw in a dramatized serial,
They set Empire Day
In the fourth week of May
And sang jingoistic material.

SHUFFLE – SHUT
Posted By: wofahulicodoc Present days, alas - 08/04/20 03:02 PM

It's all gotten lost in the shuffle
From the epi-pan-demic kerfluffle
But as Bonn is shut down
By that virus-with-crown
We are forced to eat French-fried Kartoffel.


HOPPER - HOUSE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc For no particular reason - 09/04/20 12:12 PM

There's a registered voter in Leeds
Whose heart for (you-fill-it-in) bleeds
His no-compromise view
Leaves him nothing to do
Unless part of the country secedes

Moving right along...
Posted By: wofahulicodoc resuming where we left off... - 09/04/20 04:40 PM

HOPPER - HOUSE

Reminiscences from years past -

Planetarium roof was all copper
which grew a patina on topper
And the boiler for steam
Was a little boy's dream
Being fueled by coal from a hopper

GRAIN - GREAT
Posted By: A C Bowden Bluff and double bluff - 09/27/20 04:30 AM
Great statesmen possess the capacity
For subtle strategic mendacity.
But, as with good spies,
Their tactical lies
May have a small grain of veracity.

SECOND – SEIZE
Posted By: wofahulicodoc said a Young Farmer from Leeds: - 10/03/20 02:17 AM

Task: write a limerick involving Leeds, Scotland


I have to get soil for my seeds.
It's one of my very few needs.
And I really don't care
For a boat on the Aire,*
But I'm told that all loam's rowed to Leeds.

*the River Aire is the waterway through Leeds
Posted By: A C Bowden Yet another Leeds - 10/04/20 03:50 AM
"I'm looking for Leeds", said a gent;
I wasn't sure which one he meant.
"Not Yorkshire!" he said
With a look of sheer dread,
"The one with the castle – in Kent".
Posted By: A C Bowden Henry IV's coup, 1399 - 10/05/20 01:47 AM
SECOND – SEIZE

A number of scholars have reckoned
That England's King Richard the Second
Did not seize the hour
To safeguard his power
When Bolingbroke's destiny beckoned.

AREA – ARMADILLO
Posted By: A C Bowden Cute mammal - 10/09/20 03:22 AM
One zoo kept an area free
Of bushes, so people could see
A small armadillo
Emerge from a willow
And eat its quotidian tea.

OBTRUSIVE – OCCASION
Posted By: A C Bowden It's that man again - 10/14/20 03:47 AM
Trump's presence is very obtrusive;
I wish he were much more reclusive.
His thorough pervasion
Of every occasion
Makes many opponents abusive.

LANDED – LEADING
Posted By: A C Bowden The cause of the crash - 10/18/20 03:00 AM
LANDED – LEADING

The Accident Bureau reported
That a wing's leading edge had distorted;
A hole had expanded
Before the plane landed,
And one of the circuits had shorted.

DESOLATE – DESTINED
Posted By: A C Bowden Heat death - 10/28/20 02:58 AM
Like most of the bodies in space,
The Moon is a desolate place.
But things will get worse –
The whole universe
Is destined to fade without trace.

RICHNESS – RIGHTFULLY
Posted By: A C Bowden The peerless Bard - 01/03/21 05:18 AM
The richness of Shakespeare's expression
Brings joy to the acting profession.
He's rightfully viewed
As the master of mood,
From love to despair or aggression.

OPERATE – OPPOSED
Posted By: A C Bowden How democracy works - 01/21/21 02:38 AM
True democrats operate thus β€”
They beg people: "Please vote for us!"
But if we're opposed,
Their tenure is closed,
And they normally leave without fuss.

KEPT – KETCH
Posted By: A C Bowden Good seamanship - 01/25/21 05:44 AM
When steering a ketch in a gale,
You need firm control of each sail.
If the ropes are kept tight
As the wind starts to bite,
No vital components should fail.

DEXTEROUS – DIABOLICAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Romantic pianist - 02/06/21 02:22 AM
Franz Liszt's diabolical skill
Gave ardent young ladies a thrill.
His dexterous motion
Raised cries of devotion
Through every scale passage and trill.

HAMMOCK – HANDSOME
Posted By: A C Bowden Bored with life - 02/13/21 05:56 AM
As she swung in a hammock at sea,
The damsel expressed her ennui:
"A handsome young lover
Might help me recover,
But drowning would set my soul free".

NOTABLE – NOVICE
Posted By: A C Bowden Royal approval - 04/17/21 04:58 AM
It was really a notable feat
When a novice cook managed to beat
The professional guys
For the national prize.
Prince Charles praised the girl in a tweet.

RESIDUAL – RESOURCES
Posted By: A C Bowden Fell memories - 04/22/21 04:58 AM
Some jockeys use all their resources
To ride around dangerous courses,
But can't clear their head
Of residual dread
From all the past falls from their horses.

DINGY – DIOCESAN
Posted By: A C Bowden Control of the clergy - 04/27/21 01:13 AM
If a bishop of yore were to shirk
His vital diocesan work,
He'd be solemnly whipped
In a dingy old crypt
Where ravenous rodents would lurk.

SIMULTANEOUS – SINCERE
Posted By: A C Bowden Not quite true - 05/01/21 04:01 AM
SIMULTANEOUS – SINCERE

Though many a chess master aims
To win simultaneous games,
The ones who profess
To have total success
May not be sincere in their claims.

INCEPTION – INCULCATE
Posted By: A C Bowden The end is in sight - 05/13/21 03:39 AM
Since last year's inception of lockdown,
The bug has survived every knockdown.
Some people can't cope,
So, to inculcate hope,
Let's chant: "One more year! Count the clock down!"

KIMONO – KIPPERS
Posted By: A C Bowden Gossip at the supermarket checkout - 05/15/21 04:59 AM
She wears a kimono and slippers,
And only buys lettuce and kippers.
She's ever so jolly,
And uses her trolley
To carry two boisterous nippers.

AGE – ALIEN
Posted By: A C Bowden Not bloody likely! - 05/19/21 02:26 AM
When George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion,
Most people considered it alien
To swear on the stage
In that decorous age,
Unless, of course, they were Australian.

GRANTED – GRAPPLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Seeking the truth - 05/21/21 02:31 AM
I grapple with partisan views
When reading political news.
I take it for granted
That facts have been slanted,
But search for reliable clues.

LENS – LEVER
Posted By: A C Bowden Spiritual device - 06/01/21 04:33 AM
I conceived in a dream, while in bed,
A machine for invoking the dead.
With a lens and a lever,
I tuned a receiver
To see them and hear what they said.

HISTORICAL – HOCKEY
Posted By: A C Bowden I'm just kidding... - 06/03/21 05:12 AM
Historical studies have shown
That some form of hockey was known
To Iron Age tribes.
One author describes
Dried mud balls, and sticks made of bone.

MIXTURE – MODESTLY
Posted By: A C Bowden Victory is secondary - 06/25/21 04:30 AM
With a mixture of courage and skill,
The skier careered down the hill.
Then, modestly grinning,
He said "It's not winning
That drives me – it's purely the thrill".

POLISHED – POLYHEDRON
Posted By: A C Bowden Art for art's sake - 06/28/21 05:21 AM
A brass polyhedron which stood
On a plinth made of hickory wood
In a Spanish town square
Was polished with care.
It lacked any use, but looked good.

FALLACY – FAMILIAL
Posted By: A C Bowden False psychology - 07/02/21 02:39 AM
Incessant familial strife
Is a sad fact of many kids' life.
One fallacy claims
That computer-based games
Can calm them when conflict is rife.

CUSHION – CUTTER
Posted By: A C Bowden Nine days' wonder - 07/10/21 03:18 AM
CUSHION – CUTTER

A cushion firm purchased a cutter
Which sliced through tough fabrics like butter.
Alas, it broke down –
On my last trip to town,
I saw the machine in a gutter.

PINEAPPLE – PIONEER
Posted By: A C Bowden No frills - 08/01/21 06:15 AM
Said one old Transvaal pioneer:
"There's no place for luxuries here.
You can't load your cart
With pineapple tart
Or fill it with kegs of Dutch beer".

SPIRE – SPRINGTIME
Posted By: A C Bowden Good to see, bad to hear - 08/08/21 06:26 AM
In springtime, we sang in a choir.
The church had a picturesque spire
And statues of martyrs
In breeches and garters.
Alas, the acoustics were dire.

KICKER – KNOW
Posted By: A C Bowden Team talk - 08/10/21 01:19 AM
The coach grabbed some charts and unrolled them,
Then gathered his players and told them:
"I know, a good kicker
Would help us score quicker.
I had some great guys, but I sold them!"

DRAWBACK – DRENCHED
Posted By: A C Bowden The weather's never perfect - 08/20/21 02:58 AM
I didn't stay here and complain
About being drenched yet again.
I flew off to Crete,
But the blistering heat
Was a drawback β€” I yearned for some rain.

OBSESSED – OBTAINED
Posted By: A C Bowden Impossible to please - 08/30/21 05:36 AM
A student of mine was obsessed
With finishing top in a test.
But having obtained
Full marks, she complained:
"I still feel profoundly depressed".

TEMPLE – TENNIS
Posted By: A C Bowden Hieratic game - 09/01/21 04:16 AM
A young British tourist called Dennis
Encountered a temple near Venice.
Between two brick walls
The priests batted balls
In a rite that resembled Real tennis.

UNLUCKY – UNMISTAKABLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Sudden fall - 09/14/21 04:17 AM
That dull, unmistakable sound
Is a jump jockey hitting the ground.
All riders are plucky,
But some are unlucky
And find themselves hospital-bound.

REVISION – REX
Posted By: A C Bowden Female kings? - 09/21/21 01:08 AM
A school board approved a revision
Of history, with its decision
To use the word 'Rex'
Regardless of sex
In textbooks. This caused much derision.

PENTHOUSE – PERCOLATE
Posted By: A C Bowden Thatcherite economics - 10/03/21 01:23 PM
My well-dressed conservative friend
Insisted: "The money I spend
Will percolate down
To the paupers in town
From my penthouse in London's West End".

ALDERMAN – ALIVE
Posted By: A C Bowden Municipal woe - 10/06/21 02:22 PM
ALDERMAN – ALIVE

An alderman told me: "This city
Has a landscape that's not very pretty.
It needs money to thrive
And feel more alive,
But sadly we're broke. What a pity!"

MENTALITY – MERELY
Posted By: A C Bowden Needs must - 10/14/21 04:13 AM
In lockdowns, our Covid mentality
Transforms our idea of normality.
Restrictions on freedom?
We reckon we need 'em –
They're merely a prudent reality.

HUMID – HUNCH
Posted By: A C Bowden Snap decision - 11/14/21 04:18 PM
In a swamp, on a hot humid day,
I saw some young crocodiles play.
I had a strong hunch
That they'd eat me for lunch,
So I prudently hurried away.

GRASP – GRATEFUL
Posted By: A C Bowden Peevish pedagogue - 11/24/21 01:58 AM
"You moron!" my teacher would rasp
If I found an idea hard to grasp.
I thought it quite hateful –
"Please, sir, I'd be grateful
For clarification!", I'd gasp.

DUCKLING – DUSTER
Posted By: A C Bowden Straight talk - 12/01/21 02:11 AM
Our sassy au pair said "Hey, buster!"
With all the mock rage she could muster,
"I'm no ugly duckling!"
"You're not?" I asked, chuckling.
"No way!" she cried, flinging her duster.

LEFT – LENTICULAR
Posted By: A C Bowden A sad loss - 02/18/22 06:00 AM
A brooch my late grandmother left
Was taken away in a theft.
Its lenticular shape,
Like a half-flattened grape,
Intrigued me – but now I'm bereft.

FRIENDLY – FRINGE
Posted By: A C Bowden Extremism? No thanks! - 02/26/22 03:07 AM
When talking to fringe politicians
With weird and dogmatic positions,
Don't holler or squirm.
Be friendly but firm:
Say 'No' to their crazy ambitions.

RIDER – RIPPING
Posted By: A C Bowden Minor accident - 06/27/22 04:56 AM
A racehorse, alarmed by a spider,
Reared up and unseated its rider.
Though ripping his shirt,
The man was unhurt.
(The horse was a hopeless outsider.)

MAYHEM – MEANING
Posted By: A C Bowden It makes no sense - 07/02/22 02:25 AM
We search for the meaning of life
Amid all the mayhem and strife.
While most of us cope,
A few give up hope
And do themselves in with a knife.

DISSONANT – DISTINCTIVE
Posted By: A C Bowden Twelve-tone trash - 08/17/22 03:44 AM
When dissonant music was new,
Its public supporters were few.
Some connoisseurs found
Its distinctive harsh sound
Appealing, but others would boo.

NAVIGATE – NEAPOLITAN
Posted By: A C Bowden Magnificent vessel - 08/21/22 05:39 AM
NAVIGATE – NEAPOLITAN

A great Neapolitan brig
Sailed forth from the bay in full rig
To navigate oceans
By vigorous motions
With sails that were suitably big.

SLENDER – SLIPPERY
Posted By: A C Bowden Nautical nostalgia - 09/25/22 01:21 AM
A slender young sailor ran past
And shinned up a slippery mast.
I said to the skipper:
"When I was a nipper,
I used to move equally fast!"

LOCH – LOGGER
Posted By: A C Bowden Scottish scene - 09/29/22 01:44 AM
A hiker from Hawick cried: "Och!
No monsters inhabit this loch!"
A logger called Hermann,
Who spoke only German,
Replied with great emphasis: "Doch!"*

* "Oh yes they do!"

MIRACULOUS – MISLAY
Posted By: A C Bowden Lost property - 10/09/22 01:41 AM
Suppose that you chance to mislay
Your phone as you go on your way.
If God intervenes
By miraculous means,
You'll find it again the next day.

RIVAL – RICKETY
Posted By: A C Bowden Keeping the trophy - 10/16/22 03:38 AM
Two enemies met near a ridge
And clashed on a rickety bridge.
One earned his survival
By killing his rival
And storing the corpse in a fridge.

BLOSSOM – BLUEBOTTLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Source of irritation - 10/22/22 06:07 AM
I sat where the blossom is pretty
In a large verdant park in the city.
But a bluebottle fly
Approached very nigh,
Distracting me, which was a pity.

LAMA – LAMPLIGHTER
Posted By: A C Bowden An uneventful scene - 11/10/22 02:25 AM
On a dark temple roof, an old lama
Surveyed the austere panorama.
A lamplighter came
And lit a dim flame.
It wasn't the stuff of high drama.

TEXTURE – THAW
Posted By: A C Bowden Physical changes - 12/11/22 02:42 AM
The texture of snow tends to vary;
At first it is soft, light and airy.
A thaw turns it slushy,
Then rain makes it mushy.
But if it refreezes, be wary!

DUO – DURST
Posted By: A C Bowden Sword-wielding louts - 12/13/22 03:04 AM
In the reign of King Edward the First,
One village near London was cursed
By a duo of knights
Who threatened poor wights
And bade them engage if they durst.

GONDOLIER – GOSPELS
Posted By: A C Bowden Venetian preacher - 12/19/22 01:40 AM
There was a devout gondolier,
Determined that tourists should hear
A chapter or two
Of the gospels he knew.
His English was faulty, but clear.

SABBATH – SAGACIOUS
Posted By: A C Bowden On the seventh day - 12/21/22 07:01 AM
Our vicar's sagacious advice
In his sermon last week was "Be nice,
And rest every Sunday –
The Sabbath's the one day
When gentle exertions suffice".

ELABORATE – EMPHATIC
Posted By: A C Bowden Gavotte, courante, bourrΓ©e, gigue... - 12/27/22 02:53 AM
Bach had an elaborate style,
But lightened it once in a while.
His lively French suites,
With emphatic first beats,
Could make even philistines smile.

HOCKEY – HOIST
Posted By: A C Bowden Handicap race - 04/16/23 03:17 PM
There was a keen amateur jockey
Who, eating too much, became stocky.
To hoist his poor horse
Round a twenty-fence course
Grew hopeless, so now he plays hockey.

LEGEND – LENGTHEN
Posted By: A C Bowden Medieval socialist? - 04/24/23 05:33 PM
The Robin Hood legend of old
Is often embellished when told.
The tale may be lengthened
And morally strengthened
To fit a political mould.

RUNNER – RUTHLESS
Posted By: A C Bowden Endurance test - 04/28/23 03:06 PM
A long-distance runner from Spain
Was frequently heard to complain
That his ex-Army coach
Had a ruthless approach
Which caused him avoidable pain.

CAPACITY – CARESS
Posted By: A C Bowden You're never too old... - 05/09/23 02:06 AM
My grandfather had the capacity
To live through old age with vivacity.
He liked to caress
Young women, and press
His lips to their cheeks with audacity.

LOAFING – LOCOMOTION
Posted By: A C Bowden Necessary exercise - 05/17/23 01:36 AM
When cruising around a wide ocean,
Keep healthy by self-locomotion.
If you're loafing all day,
Your heart will give way,
And you'll need some resuscitant potion.

OTHERWISE – OVERTLY
Posted By: A C Bowden Well, since you ask... - 05/21/23 04:18 AM
A schoolgirl was laughing overtly.
"What's funny?" the teacher asked curtly;
"Come, stand up and share,
Otherwise it's not fair."
"Your hairstyle", the girl replied pertly.

GAMBLER – GARGANTUAN
Posted By: A C Bowden They never learn - 05/24/23 05:33 AM
A gambler, who struggled to purge
Himself of his ruinous urge,
Still sought from each spin
A gargantuan win
To justify every past splurge.

TRIBUTE – TRIPTYCH
Posted By: A C Bowden Quirky art - 05/28/23 04:51 AM
"This triptych you see", said the guide,
"A tribute to Bell, who'd just died,
Depicts, in the centre,
The famous inventor,
With patterns of phones on each side."

EFFORT – ELASTIC
Posted By: A C Bowden Parsimonious funeral - 05/30/23 04:34 AM
The coffin was made of cheap plastic,
With duct tape and bits of elastic.
The occupant's will
Said "Keep down the bill!"
Which they did – but the effort looked drastic.

REFLECT – REGARD
Posted By: A C Bowden Capturing the mood - 06/04/23 01:40 AM
The moonlight that rivers reflect
Can have a romantic effect.
But in this regard,
I find them quite hard
To paint in a way that's correct.

CONDENSE – CONDUCIVE
Posted By: A C Bowden It's all or nothing - 06/06/23 02:26 AM
"My novel", said Proust, "is immense,
But it's frankly too hard to condense.
There's much that's allusive,
So cuts aren't conducive
To fully retaining its sense".

MOBBED – MODERN
Posted By: A C Bowden It's not all glory - 06/08/23 03:01 AM
The modern obsession with fame
Is two-edged, celebrities claim.
You're apt to be mobbed
And mindlessly robbed
By devotees chanting your name.

VACATE – VALLEY
Posted By: A C Bowden High water - 06/10/23 04:49 AM
In spring, when the river's in spate,
The valley folk often vacate
Their homes, due to mud
And possible flood.
In winter, of course, they can skate.

THEREMIN – THINK
Posted By: A C Bowden Astral noises - 06/13/23 01:11 AM
The theremin makes a weird sound
When a skilled player's hands move around.
But I think its effect
Is hard to detect
In an orchestra, where it gets drowned.

DIALECT – DIAMOND
Posted By: A C Bowden Not in the Chinese phrasebook - 06/16/23 06:00 AM
I went for a diamond ring
To a merchant in downtown Beijing.
His dialect made
It hard, I'm afraid,
But I managed to purchase the thing.

WASTED – WAXWORK
Posted By: A C Bowden Dissatisfied customer - 06/18/23 12:32 PM
Each waxwork I saw on display
Looked lifeless, or flawed in some way.
I yelled "It's not funny –
I've wasted my money!"
"Stop beefing", I heard the guide say.

HAPPEN – HARDNESS
Posted By: A C Bowden Inner-city blues - 06/30/23 05:04 PM
The hardness of life in a slum
Makes people resentful and glum.
If you happen to get
Big bucks from a bet,
To stay in such places is dumb.

IMPRESSED – IMPROBABLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Unexpected result - 07/04/23 12:35 AM
A perfect left hook to the chin
Secured an improbable win
For the challenger, which
Would make him quite rich.
The crowd, much impressed, made a din.

PHOTON – PINKISH
Posted By: A C Bowden Alternative science - 07/07/23 03:41 AM
With his 'spirit machine' in position,
He said "It's the human condition:
From this faint pinkish glow,
An observer will know
That the soul makes a photon emission".

VEILED – VERSIFICATION
Posted By: A C Bowden Subversive poetry - 07/11/23 07:22 AM
A dissident's versification
Included some veiled information
On how to depose
His Soviet foes
Oppressing the great Russian nation.

AQUATIC – ARIA
Posted By: A C Bowden Water music - 07/15/23 02:02 AM
The Tempest, whose theme is aquatic,
Is potentially quite operatic.
Its turbulent maria,
Framed in an aria,
Often prove very dramatic.

GESTURE – GILDED
Posted By: A C Bowden An air of authority - 07/17/23 01:19 PM
King Louis said "L'Γ©tat, c'est moi"
With a gesture befitting le roi.
In his great gilded hall,
The monarch, though small,
Had a dominant je ne sais quoi.

LOVELY – LUDICROUS
Posted By: A C Bowden Unwanted replacement - 07/19/23 04:53 PM
The chapel is lovely, they say,
And the villagers want it to stay.
They oppose to a man
The ludicrous plan
To 'build a church fit for today'.

TEENAGE – TEMPO
Posted By: A C Bowden Social revolution - 07/23/23 02:12 AM
When the teenage phenomenon started,
Pop music was rather half-hearted.
Then the tempo increased
As the rock-and-roll beast
Escaped, and decorum departed.

OBESITY – OBSERVABLE
Posted By: A C Bowden Pardon my snobbery but... - 07/27/23 03:42 AM
Obesity, often severe,
Is plainly observable here.
Among Class D/E,
Most bodies you'll see
Are bloated with pizza and beer.

TRITE – TROT
Posted By: A C Bowden Would you elect them? - 07/31/23 01:53 AM
If a candidate isn't too bright,
They'll trot out some comment that's trite.
But some are so dense
They can't even make sense.
It's truly a pitiful sight.

CONFIDENCE – CONIFER
Posted By: A C Bowden Save the trees - 08/04/23 01:04 AM
Some conifer forests today
Are looking in quite a bad way.
Has drilling for oil
Affected the soil?
I cannot with confidence say.

MIGHTY – MIMING
Posted By: A C Bowden Caught out - 08/10/23 02:59 AM
A mighty performance, it seemed –
The audience wouldn't have dreamed
That the singer was miming,
Until his bad timing
Betrayed him. "You phoney!", I screamed.

FLIPPANT – FLORAL
Posted By: A C Bowden Tactless remark - 08/13/23 06:24 AM
The judge of the contest gave praise
To the ladies' quaint floral displays,
But injured their pride
With a flippant aside:
"We're all a bit withered these days!"

RIGOROUS – RIPARIAN
Posted By: A C Bowden Wild plant - 09/11/23 01:25 AM
An ugly riparian weed
Kept spreading, and scattering seed.
But a rigorous drill
Of 'trample and kill'
Proved very successful indeed.

DEVICE – DEXTERITY
Posted By: A C Bowden No, not celery (or celebrity) - 09/15/23 02:45 AM
My friend has a nifty device
For making spaghetti from rice.
She can, by dexterity,
Cook with celerity
Loads of the stuff – it tastes nice.

SIDEREAL – SIGHTLINE
Posted By: A C Bowden Observing the stars - 09/19/23 01:13 AM
Our cities have glare in profusion,
And sightlines are prone to occlusion.
But on calm desert nights
The sidereal lights
Show up without haze's obtrusion.

TRANSMISSION – TRAVERSE
Posted By: A C Bowden Undignified end - 09/23/23 01:32 AM
When it came to the solemn transmission
Of the corpse to its resting position,
We had to traverse
Rough fields with the hearse,
Which arrived in a battered condition.

CAPITAL – CARAMEL
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