| caps, capital letter, majuscule, upper case by Janet McConnaughey (Limerick #125898) | Once on an alphabet time,
The immortal and sometimes sublime
Works of Virgil and Horace,
Like many before us,
Were all-majuscule (CAPS) (without rhyme). | The ancient Greek and Roman alphabets had no minuscule letters — or, as we now call them, lower case. Development of minuscule letters began in about the 3rd or 4th century BCE. The Roman alphabet's (yeah, that's the one used for English) minuscule forms were fully formed in about the late 8th century.
Of course, until there were two sets of letters, there was no need for any description but letters. The phrase capital letter dates back at least to the early 1400s. The others show up well after Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press around 1450. Majuscule, referring to the Greek alphabet, has been found in a letter dated 1701. Upper case and under case ( lower case) — references to the frames in which printers kept their type — show up in print in 1738. Caps came into use about a century later. |
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| handy by Janet McConnaughey (Limerick #125897) | Sing the blues: "No, my handyman's not
Near as handy — that is, on the spot
For trimming my lawn,
Hauling ash, on and on.
Once did everything; now he does squat." | This paraphrases "My Handy Man Ain't Handy No More," the second of a pair of blues songs by poet, composer, and lyricist Andy Razaf (1895–1973). In the first, "My Handy Man," the narrator sings about how wonderful her handyman is: He shakes my ashes,
Greases my griddle,
Churns my butter,
Strokes my fiddle. In the second, she's disillusioned.
Ethel Waters' recordings of the two songs were released in 1928 and 1930. |
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| gier-eagle, gier eagle, Egyptian vulture, Neophron percnopterus, white scavenger vulture, pharaoh's chicken by Janet McConnaughey (Limerick #125895) | The gier-eagle isn't an eagle,
But a vulture. It's named as illegal
For a Jew's home economy
In 14 Deuteronomy,
Along with the bat, kite and seagull. | At any rate, the bird listed in Hebrew as רחם (racham) and in many English translations as gier-eagle, is also sometimes identified as the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus).
Eagle and vulture are both among birds that Deuteronomy 14 and Leviticus 11 list as unclean, so it might have been covered either way.
Egyptian vultures, also called pharaoh's chickens, are small, as vultures go. The heaviest of three subspecies averages 2.4 kilograms (5.3 pounds), compared to 6.2 kilograms (13.7 pounds) for bearded vultures, a large species. |
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| glede, red kite, Milvus milvus by Janet McConnaughey (Limerick #125894) | When the kite builds, look to your lesser linen.
—Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale | Fork-tailed gledes glide the sky: Watch us cruise.
For our food, we red kites plain refuse
To be pigeonholed — diving,
We're predators; thriving
On carrion, too. We can't lose. | Red kites (Milvus milvus) eat more carrion than fresh food, often noshing on deer or sheep carcass leftovers — they're too small to kill or carry anything bigger than rabbits.
They are also known as laundry thieves, using their loot to line their nests, along with paper and other found materials. Nests have been found with decor including dish towels, socks, gloves and frilly underwear. |
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| deride, esteem by Giorgio Coniglio (Limerick #125892) | Manet's canvas, deemed "gauche" and "outré",
As displayed with the works refusés:
Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (grass),
Then derided as crass,
But esteemed as superbe in our day. | Édouard Manet (1832–1883) is regarded as the figurehead of French impressionist painters. Trained as a traditionalist, he showed his revolutionary nature with Lunch on the Grass, 1862. The painting was relegated to an alternative show (le Salon des Refusés) for submissions rejected from the Salon of 1863; the public and critics were outraged by what they perceived as mockery of the Great Masters, its unconventional format showing a picnic mixing nude females and dressed men. Based on le Déjeuner and other such paintings, younger painters, who became known as Impressionists in the 1870s, came to regard Manet as their leader. |
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| house poor by Steven Kent (Limerick #125891) | I impress folks by owning this place;
It's a mansion I bought to save face.
Now we're (I and my spouse) poor,
So thoroughly house poor.
We're broke; could we rent out some space? |
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| horndog by Steven Kent (Limerick #125890) | You're a horndog, or so people say:
Just a man who seeks out his next lay.
Listen carefully, mister:
You can't date my sister.
Get moving—get lost—get away! |
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| house call by Steven Kent (Limerick #125889) | My mum's doctor, this handsome young chap,
Would make house calls; he'd come in a snap
And he'd never collect.
Looking back, I suspect
That he didn't do likewise for Pap. |
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| homeroom, home room by Steven Kent (Limerick #125888) | In homeroom we start out the school day,
Then leave for our look-I'm-so-cool day.
We move class to class;
What a pain in the ass!
Why not stay here each act-like-a-fool day? | (HOHM-room)
In many secondary schools, each student will begin the day in his or her assigned homeroom for attendance and morning announcements. All students are then dismissed for their scheduled first period classes. |
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| get the air, got the air, get the brush, got the brush by Duncan Stevens (Limerick #125887) | I'm rebuffed by my summertime crush,
And she's grinding my ego to mush:
From each photo we graced
I've been deftly erased!
What a blow: got the air, got the brush. | Both get the air and get the brush mean rejection, though only the first is specifically about rejection of a lover. |
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