August 01, 2020, 17:15
haberdasherCairo revisited
Apparently more difficult than I had originally pictured, but the intrepid Wordcrafters have come through splendidly. Here are the offerings, in some cases complete with Authors' Footnotes:
__________________________________________
1.
A man who would soar over Cairo
In a miniature autogyro
Often says,”Listen friends,
Mind the great Khamsin winds
Flying gyros is not for a tyro!"
2.
An unemployed fellow from Cairo
In the post office cashing his Giro*
Did not know what to do
But the cashier knew
"Just sign at the bottom in biro."**
*In the UK a "Giro" is a welfare check which can be cashed in any post office
**And just in case the word isn't common over there, a "biro" is a ball point pen
3.
I know a young lady from Cairo
Whose home is resplendent with heiro-
Glyphics on every door
And I've never been sure
If it's proper to scoff, or admire-o.
4.
"The low row is yours, but the high row"
Said a gardener while gardening in Cairo
"Is the row that I'll hoe -
I'll go high, you go low -
Hoe your own row and do not hoe my row!"
5.
Firecracker* sellers in Cairo
Have little luck selling pyro-
Technical wares
All the frights and the scares!
It's better to sell pens from Biro**
*That's FIRE- with one syllable, not two as in "FI-er"
**Yeah, yeah, there's a short "i" in "Biro," but I'll pretend it rhymes. Heck, I doubt I could even pronounce his name! László József Bíró was Hungarian, and I can't understand most Hungarians when they speak Aueracun!
6.
On a menu, the pizza in Cairo
Was mistakenly put in the 'fry' row
"A pizza's NOT fried,"
The chef angrily cried.
"The pizza belongs in the 'pie' row!"
And to close out the collection:
7.
In Egypt's a beautiful Cairo,
Though IL has a Cairo and pyro-
Maniac, too.
(To this lim bid adieu
It stinks and is making my eyes roll!)
_________________________
And there it is, our virtual excursion to Cairo. Roll them on your tongue, and cast your vote for the most pleasing!
August 01, 2020, 21:02
Greg SHello Everyone ... Sorry I have been absent for a long while. Covid-19 has made heaps of extra work for me. I teach Coding and Math(s) problem solving for Primary (Elementary) School kids, and we aren't allowed into the schools any more so we are trying to deliver it all online. Means I have to convert my lessons to a format suitable for online delivery, and even though I have many less classes now, the reworking of the material takes forever. Anyway I saw this in my email and No. 4 cracked me up so much, I just had to jump on here and give it a Vote.
August 02, 2020, 00:09
BobHaleToo late for the game but here’s another
You say you’re in trouble in Cairo
Can I send you some cash or a Giro
But I KNOW it’s a con
I’m a mafia Don
So I’ll send round ‘the boys’. Regards, Spiro.
August 02, 2020, 07:39
GeoffGreg, you're alive! Good to hear from you again.
I'll go for #4. Delightfully silly twonge tister. Or is that twing touster?
August 07, 2020, 04:32
haberdasherHas anyone else an opinion? Or perhaps I should say, hasn’t anyone else an opinion?
August 07, 2020, 15:15
GeoffI have an opinion: WC is kaput. sigh...
August 12, 2020, 16:49
Greg SYou're right Geoff ... the silence is deafening. Not just this Game but the whole site, I see.
August 13, 2020, 19:35
KallehYes, Greg. We have definitely decreased in both size and activity. I hate to shut the site down, though, so I am not going to do that yet.
Geoff, "kaput" is a bit harsh.
August 13, 2020, 19:37
KallehI guess I'll choose #6. This was a hard word!
August 14, 2020, 18:02
Greg SThat's quite sad, Kalleh, guess it's been a weird year all round. In my home town, we are two weeks into a 6 week Stage 4 covid-19 lockdown that includes an 8:00 pm - 5:00 am full-on curfew.
August 14, 2020, 20:11
BobHaleWeird, isn't it? You would think that being forced to stay at home would mean people have more time and enthusiasm for things like wordcraft but, psychologically, it doesn't seem to work that way. It seems to induce a kind of ennui, a feeling of not wanting to do anything - that just lying on the bed staring at the ceiling is preferable to reading a book, engaging with message boards, cleaning the house (well it is preferable to that!) or catching up with the hundred movies that you downloaded but have never watched and will probably never watch. My situation here is different in cause but hardly at all in effect. We don't have a lockdown at the moment and life is pretty much normal. But, because I live in a city where there are virtually no other native English speakers and my Chinese is all but non-existent, I have no real friends here. Even if I do have a coffee or a beer with a colleague (or more likely a student) our cultural backgrounds are too different for us to have anything to say to each other. The result is that, apart from food shopping, I spend ninety plus percent of my time in my apartment doing, by and large, nothing more interesting than lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. There isn't much difference between not going out because you can't and not going out because you have nowhere to go. I don't really notice it in term time but eight weeks of school "holiday" is taking its toll. So I also feel the ennui that means I could do lots of things but can't get enthusiastic enough about anything to get started. My most interesting task in the last six weeks has been re-cataloguing my collection of downloaded Doctor Who comics - a task that didn't need doing but is simultaneously convoluted and dull so that the hours pass in a sort of unnoticed haze.
August 15, 2020, 08:05
GeoffBob, you remind me of my long-ago French girlfriend who observed: "Americans are not human beings; they are are human DOINGS. They are far too busy to simply BE." Alas, that statement now fits more than just Ameracunz.
I guess that's why solitary confinement in prison is considered "cruel and unusual punishment"
August 15, 2020, 09:24
BobHaleI remind you of an ex-girlfriend? Wow, she must have been a real looker.
August 16, 2020, 04:31
Geoffquote:
Originally posted by BobHale:
I remind you of an ex-girlfriend? Wow, she must have been a real looker.
Facially she looked like something Picaso would have drawn while on a bad LSD trip, but the rest was magnifique! Don't know about you, having not seen any of you.
August 21, 2020, 07:31
GeoffDid anyone win this round? Who's up next, and where do we go?
August 21, 2020, 20:26
KallehYes, I am ready for the next word too. Can it be a little easier, please?
Bob, that is a great point about people at home in a pandemic. I just find myself working a lot more since I started working from home.
August 21, 2020, 20:51
BobHaleAs 2 4 and 6 were all mine I guess it's up to me. Tempted though I am to go for somewhere really easy like Poughkeepsie I think I'll go for the English city of Leeds... come on there are hundreds of rhymes for that. Couldn't be easier. I'll post it right now.