Lingua Latīna

In Latin America, Latin is not spoken, 

Which makes it clear: our naming system is broken. 

Latin does retain a national home, 

A tiny city-state surrounded by Rome, 

A place it's difficult to be democratic in - 

Since there's just one ruler at the Vatican.

Yule

They say the source of “Yule” is Norse.

The Vikings overran England, of course.

These rugged ransackers, scrappy and scary,

Invaded our vocabulary.

Loophole

If Trump were to pardon Pence
And then resign,
Could Pence then pardon Trump?
I've boggled my mind.

Dehydrated

I bought a dehydrated water packet. 

It looked kind of empty - was this just a racket? 

But I emptied the empty packet into a glass, 

Mixed in some water - and Lo! What came to pass! 

I sure enough had a nice glass full of water, 

Just like the instructions said I oughter.

Free Advice

Excuse me if I seem a bit aloof, 

But In the drama, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 

I twice have played the doc - and it went to my head. 

So please, just take two aspirin and go to bed!

Context

 Being on the bench:

In sports it suggests you’re not a star,

But at a piano concert 

It means you are.

Digital

 It’s a question so dumb

But somehow it lingers:

How can your thumb

Be one of your fingers?

Pink Hat

Some context makes excuses. 

Other context offers damnation. 

Personally I prefer

The kind that yields explanation. 

 My life advice here is to not get photographed wearing a swastika or the hammer and sickle. And everyone has a camera with them nowadays, so just do not wear a swastika or the hammer and sickle. Because you will have explaining to do, and it's unlikely your explanation will satisfy everybody, unless maybe you're acting in a movie.

Salem

The plot line of Miller’s The Crucible:

When basic protections are losable,

Everyone ends up accusable.

Derminology

There was an ad on TV where the actress 

Said something about "my derm", 

Meaning her dermatologist. 

This usage made me squirm. 

Is that for for real, is "derm" the slang 

For this medical specialty? 

I need to get up to date on this stuff. 

I only know: "O B G"!

Positive Attitude

You can lower the positivity rate
By only testing those who feel great.
My plan will work - I know it will:
Just stop testing folks when they're ill!

Reflecting

Unless you’re a lip reader
Looking in a mirror
You cannot “watch what you say” -
The facts couldn’t be any clearer.

My Mother Tongue

The plural of knife is knives,
So I figured the plural of fife would be fives!
It turns out that fives IS a word,
But not the plural of fife - quite absurd!
I’m glad that I learned English first,
Since learning it later would just be the worst!

Safety

If everyone were locked in a cell, 

For a year of isolation hell, 

Would that be enough 

To kill off this stuff? 

Or would virus particles remain here and there 

To infect us again when we stepped out for air? 

Will this ever come to an end? 

Asking for a friend.

American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century

 

Two of my short plays will be in this book, due out soon.
Needless to say, I'm over the moon.

You can preorder here.

Strong Conjugation by Back Formation

Heard someone say froke
As the past tense of freak.
Sometimes I'm amused
By the way people speak.

This was while watching Made In Heaven, a sort of soap-opera-ish streaming show on Amazon, about high-end wedding planners, which is set in India, and which you have to watch with subtitles because the language is a mix of English and Indian language or languages.

But this use of "froke" is apparently not strictly an odd Indian thing. When I looked it up, there is American usage too.

There's also a completely different usage where it's a noun meaning a "frozen Coke".

Pun-ish-ment

Use fascinate in a sentence? Of course!
I'd love to, in fact, I can hardly wait:
I have nine buttons on my coat
But I can only fascinate.

Forecast

Weather’s much too nice. 

Where’s the snow and ice? 

What? It’s on its way? 

Stay, fair weather, stay!

Kennedy-Nixon

During the Kennedy-Nixon election of 1960, Illinois was a closely contested swing state. I was 8, and I was in favor of Kennedy, as my parents were. 

Kennedy's electoral college victory was narrow, and dependent upon Illinois. There was some question, at the time, about the honesty of the elections in Illinois. My father suggested to me that the Democrats stole votes in Chicago, and that the Republicans stole votes Downstate, and that it roughly balanced out. I suspect this is correct. 

Normally, you can only steal so many votes, because there are a lot of safeguards in place. The relatively small volume of stolen votes only makes a difference when the election is close. 

Nixon conceded. There were people who thought that was a mistake. I don't know. 

What I remember puzzling me at the time, is that the Chicago Republican newspapers, the Tribune and the American, kept running headlines, maybe for a week, about various ballot audits finding additional votes for Nixon in the aftermath. 

So, even though Nixon conceded, audits went on. But the audits never added up to enough to get Nixon declared the winner of Illinois. 

I imagine that's what's going to happen with Trump in Pennsylvania. But, hey, run the audit, do the investigations. We have laws in place for all this. It was an unusual election, particularly with the heavier-than-usual mail-in voting. 

So, let the president sue. 

Let the courts do what they do. 

Let plenty of light be shined 

And we'll find what we can find.

Oops

Pollsters swear on the bible 

That their numbers are reliable, 

But on election day 

You often hear them say: 

Opinion shifted in the final week, 

We’ll get it right next time - with just one tweak!