| glim, glimmer by pöt (Limerick #111426) | "It furnishes light: this is glim,
No matter if that's bright or dim.
It was shortened from glimmer,
Whose light can be dimmer,"
Said slim Tim to trim Kim in the gym. | Dictionaries give that as a possible etymology. |
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| farce by MattMonitto (Limerick #111425) | A physicist/humorist, Nell,
Had a comedy show where she'd tell
Of her spreadsheeting gaffes—
It drew thousands of laughs
Because farce equals math times Excel. | |
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| golden hello by zqms (Limerick #111423) | If you're looking for work, you should know
Many companies offer good dough
Just for joining their teams.
And the best jobs, it seems,
Have the greatest such golden hello. |
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| Guidonian hand by Reia Light (Limerick #111422) | To chant properly, monks, understand
This fine finger-mnemonic we've planned.
To sing ut up to fa
(Or mi–sol, or re–la),
Just recall the Guidonian hand. | Guido of Arezzo (c. 991–after 1033) was a medieval monk and music theorist responsible for inventing both staff notation (Guido's version had only four lines rather than the modern five, with the lines for the notes F and C indicated using red and yellow ink respectively) and solmization, the system of assigning syllables to the notes of a musical scale. Guido's solmization syllables were ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la, derived from the first syllables of each line of the hymn "Ut queant laxis." In the Western solfège system, ut was later replaced with do and a syllable for the leading tone, ti, was added.
The Guidonian hand was a teaching tool invented either by Guido himself or by his followers, in which each pitch used in chant at the time was associated with a joint of the left hand, forming a spiral from the lowest (known as Gamma ut, the origin of our modern word gamut) at the tip of the thumb to the highest (known as E la) on the back upper knuckle of the middle finger. Students (who at the time would generally have been monks or nuns learning chant) were taught to sing intervals as the teacher pointed to the joints on his or her hand. |
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| east-south-eastward by zqms (Limerick #111421) | "Twenty-two and a half wee degrees
Right of east, that fat galleon flees.
East-south-eastward she goes
To the rest of our foes,"
Says the parrot; Long John disagrees. |
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| gook by zqms (Limerick #111420) | See that oozy old goo there, that dirt?
We call gook (rhymes with look) such a squirt.
But whatever you do,
Don't give gook a long "oo":
Many Asians would feel deeply hurt. | The advice in this limerick's last two lines is meant earnestly. As a derogatory term for people from Asia, gook is highly offensive, and naïvely confusing the two pronunciations of this word can cause much unnecessary and unintended grief. |
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| chippy by zqms (Limerick #111419) | If an athlete's acts don't seem okay,
And the fans all suspect there's foul play,
In their humorous way
Some Canadians say
This is "chippy" — and some may add "eh?" |
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| barium nitrate by GalFisk (Limerick #111418) | When a firework's bright white or green,
It is barium nitrate you've seen
Making color, O2.
"And it's toxic!" says you.
Yeah, that's true if you eat it, you bean. | Barium makes a flame glow white by itself or green when combined with chlorine. It is used in some white and practically all green fireworks. Barium nitrate is also the oxidizer of choice for sparklers. |
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| bloody flag by zqms (Limerick #111417) | British warships once used to display
Bloody flags on their mastheads to say
They were ready to fight:
Large red squares were a sight
Meaning trouble was now on its way. | ... that is, they'd mean trouble for you if you were on board an enemy ship, so one from the Low Countries, Spain, France, the New England colonies, Sardinia, Naples and Sicily, Sweden, the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, the United States, the Vermont Republic, Denmark, Norway, China, Uruguay, Argentina or any other country at war with the British during the age of naval battles fought with men-o-war.
If you were a fellow-Briton, the sight of a bloody flag was a bloody good thing, by Jove. |
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| choking coil, choke coil, chokecoil, choke, reactance coil, reactor by zqms (Limerick #111416) | "Mister Bond," said the tinkerer Q,
"My new choking coil's not meant for you,
Nor for killing, you fool!
It's electric — a tool
Blocking AC, while DC goes through." | Such coils are used in electric circuits to limit alternating currents applied to their ends, while letting direct currents pass through. |
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