For Mature Audiences
These limericks reside in the curtained room of the OEDILF, away from the eyes of young or sensitive readers. To keep the other pages relatively clean, I thought I’d do the same here. The result is an entire page of limericks about sex or full of four-letter words, so if you’re young or sensitive, look away now.
When society figures retreat
To convivial settings, they meet
To partake in some glamorous
Congress, like amorous
Licking of ankles and feet.
As well as finding ankles too arousing for respectable company, Victorians found most terms for arousal similarly unseemly—hence their many euphemisms for sex. Two of the most polite were amorous congress and the even less transparent convivial society.
She decided brunette never suits;
That a paler shade bears better fruits:
So she dyed every frond
A peroxide ash-blonde.
Now the girl’s really finding her roots.
New South Welshmen, those rugby fans, say,
“Aussie Rules is a shit game to play!
It’s aerial ping-pong!
We’d rather a ding-dong
(Or scrum, as they’re known) any day.”
He’s been arseholed—he’s out of a job—
And he sits round the house like a slob,
Getting arseholed on Scotch.
It’s too painful to watch.
(And to do—“I can feel me head throb.”)
In British slang, arseholed means extremely drunk, but in Australia, if you’ve been arseholed you’ve been given the sack or thrown out of the premises (for example, from a pub).
This mail-order-bride website fits
Terry’s needs... Oh, he’ll love her to bits.
Why, she looks just like you—
She’s from Kazakhstan too—
And has birds with her. See? Azure tits.
The azure tit is widespread throughout Russia, Central Asia, northwest China, Manchuria and Pakistan. It was originally classified within the genus Parus alongside great tits, but after genetic analysis in the 2000s was assigned to the genus Cyanistes. It sometimes hybridizes with the blue tit.
We all met in the Ladies before
Heading back to them spunks. “Em, ya sure?”
“Yeah, I’d bang him like...” “What?”
“Like a...” “Yeah, mate, he’s hot!”
“Come on, Emma, like what?” “Dunny door!”
Making baskets and making of faces:
News of either one often disgraces
A woman of standing—
It harms ladies’ branding
To mention their tender embraces.
Face-making is one of the less obscure nineteenth-century euphemisms for sex: lovers make faces during it, and make new faces—babies—as a consequence of it. Basket-making, though (as in “those two recently opened a basket-making shop”) is less obvious: it was originally a term for knitting the heels of children’s stockings.
“Oweryergoin, ya bastard, orright?”
If an Aussie says this, don’t take fright:
It’s a term of endearment,
Not one that you fear meant
Your parents’ ships passed in the night.
Well, it can be; it all depends on the context. If an Aussie greets you this way; you’re good; if he calls you a “silly bastard” with a chuckle in his voice, you’re good; but if he screams “why the fuck did you do that, you stupid bastard”, you’re in trouble.
Shazza’s droppin’ her undies? You beaut!
She looks beaut in her beaut birthday suit.
She’s a beautiful person,
As we were conversin’,
A beaut—an’ can root beaut, to boot.
I try to write a limerick showing the word’s many uses in my homeland and end up with one of my filthiest... beaut. In Australia and New Zealand, beaut can be an interjection, an adjective, a noun and an adverb, and root doesn’t mean what other English-speakers think it does.
From the bedroom, I hear the bloke beckon,
But before we get sexy, I’m checkin’
Him out: is this guy a
Romantic high flyer?
Isn’t such a big thing, critics reckon.
“Blanket hornpipe? Just what could it mean?
A device to keep coverings clean?
A wind instrument, maybe?
A toy for a baby?”
“I’m afraid, ma’am, it’s rather obscene.”
Nineteenth-century euphemisms for sex were nothing if not creative.
I know that it’s pleasin’—I find
Drinkin’ pleasurable too—but mate, mind
How you go. You’ll be sunk
If you get rollin’ drunk:
If you pleasure yourself, you’ll be blind.
In Australia, the phrase blind drunk is regularly shortened to blind (“He’s totally blind, we’d better call him a cab”). Other forms of self-pleasuring may or may not leave you blind.
“Shiver me timbers!” I roar,
“Blow the grounsils!”—a phrase for amour.
The term’s derivation’s
From wooden foundations:
Essentially, “bang on the floor”.
Blow the grounsils is a nineteenth-century euphemism for sex, in this case having sex on the floor. A groundsel (or numerous variant spellings) is a timber that serves as a building foundation.
Though my wife finds our birdwatching pleasing,
The morning air’s leaving her sneezing.
“Bill, we’re both getting old—
Can’t you see that I’m cold?
Well of course you see blue tits. I’m freezing.”
This small blue-and-yellow-feathered titmouse, common across Europe and Asia, was originally classified within the genus Parus alongside great tits, but after genetic analysis in the 2000s was assigned to the genus Cyanistes with the azure tit. The Eurasian blue tit and the African blue tit (which is found on the coast of North Africa) were formerly thought to belong to the same species.
The booze artist looked pretty muted.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, “Feelin’ too newted?”
“Not pissed,” said this loser.
“Just passed by the boozer...
Got breatho’d. The booze bus. I’m rooted.”
“I’m bored shitless,” declared me mate Claud.
I was shocked. She said, “Don’t look so floored.
I’m not lackin’ in shit.
I just mean I’m a bit...
No, I’m really, a lot, fuckin’ bored.”
Mate is gender neutral among younger Aussies. Claud is short for Claudia, a reasonably popular girls’ name in Australia in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
I sez to the geezer, “Brad Pitt!
Keep the box o’ toys down, yer daft git,
Or a bottle an’ stopper
Will ’ear us.” We drop a
Full bag in the Danny and flit.
Because this is Cockney rhyming slang, the fellow’s name isn’t Brad—I’m just annoyed (shit!) because he’s making a racket (noise), which might alert a member of the constabulary (copper) to our larcenous activities. Time for a quick getaway in the Danny Marr (car).
I used colourful language, it’s true—
You could say that I turned the air blue—
But my “fuck the police”
Expressed love, sir, and peace:
Boys in blue deserve intercourse too.
“Brad Pitt! Chevy Chase… Christian Slater!”
Some starstruck Los Angeles waiter?
Nah, mate, ’e’s a friend
’ere in London’s East End:
’e said, “Shit! I’m quite drunk… see you later!”
Okay, you can figure out Pitt and Slater, but Chevy Chase? Off ’is face, me ol’ china—off ’is face.
“She was spreading her legs,” heard Dad mutter.
“I caught them in bed, bread and butter
Style, one on the other.”
“Caught who?” “Why, your mother
And uncle!” “I’m shocked that he’d nut ’er.”
The twentieth-century U.S. slang term nut is anachronistic here, as bread and butter is a nineteenth-century British euphemism for sex.
A Cockney with sausage and mash
Has a pocket that’s heaving with cash.
If he’s got bread and honey,
That also means money.
Gets expensive, an edibles stash.
Polly lowered her voice to a hush:
“Him and me ’ad a fling—yeah, a brush.
Didn’t last—didn’t bring
Me no chocolates or ring—
And we done the whole thing in a rush.”
This nineteenth-century euphemism for sex (or in this case, a brief liaison) has long since been given the brush-off.
For fishing, my dad used a bucktail:
A deer tail, his “brings me good luck” tail.
For luring big fish,
It did not grant his wish,
So today it’s his “don’t give a fuck” tail.
“I’m totally buggered.” Admired
His frankness... “You’ve always desired
Relations with men
That are intimate, then?”
“Bugger off, mate. I just mean I’m tired.”
Australians’ casual use of the term bugger can take non-Aussies aback, but we rarely use it to mean someone who engages in anal sex, and it’s not commonly the term of abuse or contempt that it can be elsewhere. Nowadays it’s more often heard with modifiers suggesting affection, compassion, or mild annoyance, like little, lazy, poor, and silly. (Past prime minister Bob Hawke once sparked a media frenzy, which felt overblown even then, when he was filmed calling a pensioner at a shopping centre a “silly old bugger” under his breath.) To be told to bugger off is a milder form than some of the swearier equivalents, and to say that you’re buggered just means that you’re in an unfortunate position or, as here, exhausted.
“That woman ain’t sexy or cute!
She’s a redneck, and fugly to boot!
She’s a bushpig! A scrubber!”
He started to blubber.
“And a dicktease. Won’t gimme a root.”
Like most of the insults here, bushpig is a derogatory term; in parts of Australia it means an unattractive woman from the country, while in others it’s used of country people of either sex. Root, meanwhile, means the other kind of sex.
My plunger broke! Shit, what a mess!
(For non-Aussies, I guess I should stress
That’s a cafetière—
The tall glass thing, right there,
I brew coffee in. Broke my French press.)
Why does Canberra bashing exist?
It’s a wonderful place for a tryst,
An affair of the heart,
Gourmet food and fine art,
Yet the stereotypes still persist.
“It’s so boring, so dull,” Aussies cry,
As they lay into Canberra. “Why,
It’s all bureaucrats, pollies
And students. This folly’s
A place where your hopes go to die.”
Yes, it’s home to some shit politicians
And dull public servants, whose mission’s
To screw us, but that’s
Why we made it: so spats
Can occur under managed conditions.
It may not have the big-city appeal of Sydney or Melbourne, but Canberra is a fascinating place, and not only for followers of Australian federal politics. It’s home to many national institutions, and its distinctive layout, designed from scratch in the early twentieth century, is like nowhere else in the country. Because its name is shorthand in the media for the federal government and parliament and all the drama that goes with them, it has unpleasant associations for most Aussies, but it’s actually a pretty pleasant place to live.
“I think Marvel’s best guy’s Captain Britain.”
“That’s America, no? Hey, you’re shittin’
Me. C’mon, man, you’re lyin’.”
“No, really. Name’s Brian.
He was Spider-Man’s roommate.” “I’m quittin’.”
No need to give up so soon: there really is a Captain Britain. Brian Braddock, a physics student given superpowers by Merlyn and his daughter, was the first, and at various points the mantle has been adopted by Brian’s twin sister Betsy. The character has featured in almost two thousand Marvel Comics issues since 1976, including one storyline where Brian was Peter Parker’s roomie in New York, although he never twigged that Peter was Spidey.
Says the lad in self-pleasuring’s thrall,
“Why, it doesn’t cause blindness at all!”
But a spot of castration
Soon stops masturbation:
No balls means he won’t have a ball.
On the hunt for old insults? They lurk
On the Underground lines, still at work.
To not see what defines
The term Charlie inclines
Me to think you ain’t Cockney, you berk.
Charlie in its 1940s sense of a fool or simpleton has two associated Cockney slang rhymes: either it’s short for Charlie Smirke (a jockey of the time) and rhyming slang for berk, or it’s short for Charlie Hunt and rhyming slang for... what berk was originally rhyming slang for. (Berk is short for Berkeley hunt. Bet you now feel like a right Charlie.)
Jack called to his mates, “Get here quick!
Check that checkout chick out. Man, she’s sick!”
(He meant wicked or good.)
“Darlin’, check out my wood!”
(He meant dick.) She chucked back, “Cheeky prick.”
This Australian term for a (young) woman operating a retail checkout can even be used—ironically—of a bloke.
My woman, I won’t never please ’er.
I’ll chop her to pieces an’ squeeze ’er
Remains in this chest:
First a leg and a breast,
Then her head and the rest in my freezer.
A roomy chest freezer is an essential appliance for any aspiring axe murderer.
When a Cockney bloke calls you “ol’ china”,
There couldn’t be anything finer.
It means you’re his mate
(Rhyming slang: china plate).
Gender-neutral, too: cock or vagina.
A kiddie dismissive of Chrissy
As “bullshit”, who chucks a huge hissy
Fit, then, to displease us,
Talks shit about Jesus?
No pressies from Santa, young missy.
Yer a plucky young feller, orright, cock,
And I’ll betcher a bastard to fight, cock,
But I reckon I’ll beatcher,
As soon as the teacher
Has buggered off right outta sight, cock.
Cock once meant someone who fights with pluck or spirit, becoming a vulgar if appreciative form of address in nineteenth-century England. It persisted in Cockney usage, usually addressed to men of unknown name. The transported version, though, is often used in Tasmania to address blokes you know, much the way mate is in the rest of Australia (though with stronger class divisions). It can be perfectly polite in the right circles—say, among working-class schoolboys. Owyergoin’, cock, orright?
“Good morning, you spunk... wanna quickie?”
“Too right, but I’m workin’—it’s tricky.”
“Tell your boss you can’t come...
So you can.” “Heh, heh... yum.
What the heck. I’ll call in, chuck a sickie.”
A spunk in Australia is an attractive person (someone spunky; and, yes, spunk also has a different meaning). Too right means “you’re right”, “that’s correct”, “I concur”. A sickie is a sick day, but often with suspicious overtones: chucking a sickie means taking a day off work or school under the pretense of being sick. Taking a sickie can mean the same, but could be more innocuous—you might actually be sick. Not if you’re chucking one, though.
My woman, in bed, is the boss,
But for some things she don’t give a toss.
We could really have fun
Goin’ down under, for one—
It’s her loss if she won’t come across.
This one’s in thickest Strine, where going rhymes with loan and come across means “come round to my way of thinking” or, in relationships, “put out”.
He’s the deafest and densest of men.
They’ll spend the night sweating, yet when
She lies back on the floor
And moans, “Do it once more!”
The poor bastard will ask, “Come again?”
Said the teenager, “Goodness, how dandy!
My manhood now grows when I’m randy.
And on closer inspection—
My word! An erection!
That feature should soon come in handy.”
It’s the world’s biggest orgy, and how—
Full of thousands of Beatles fans, wow!
All we need now is love,
So let’s hug—and then shove.
Yes, let’s all come together right now.
Masturbation’s a pastime for tools,
And so firmly enjoyed in boys’ schools—
Trying hard as they might
As they practice all night,
Students soon come to grips with the rules.
The decorous shy from the thorny
Reactions that come from a porny
Slang word; they maintain
That an upright young swain
Is concupiscent. Most would say horny.
It walloped her right in the cooch!
As accidents go, that’s an ooch.
Yeah, right in her crotch—
It was painful to watch.
So I gave her a Scotch and a smooch.
I’m gettin’ it on with my hoochie,
And everything’s turnin’ all smoochy.
We’re ready to blow,
When whaddaya know:
She’s a regular Joe, with no coochie.
When describing the bits of a floozie,
You could always use “cooze” or else “coozie”,
Although maybe don’t choose
The one rhyming with “ooze”—
As vagina terms go, it’s a doozie.
“Let’s crack onto the bloke on that chair,”
Said Sienna. “The one with blond hair.”
She went over: “You’re cute.”
He said, “How ’bout a root?”
She said, “Sure.” Not much mystery there.
When an Aussie is cracking onto someone, he or she is striking up a conversation with the intention of getting laid.
You’re a bit of a dag—kinda weird
An’ uncool—or so other kids sneered
Back in school. All those creeps
Were referring to sheep’s
Shit-encrusted rear ends. You were smeared!
Although the epithet does derive from the Aussie term for the dirty wool around a sheep’s backside, it’s often used affectionately.
“I’m gutted, mate—devo’d.” “Yeah, defo.”
“That defo was in. Stupid ref.” “Oh
Yeah—saw it meself.”
“I’ll get left on the shelf,
Captain said.” “Mate, I’d tell him to F.O.”
In Australia, defo is short for definitely and devo’d for devastated.
“Hey, mate. Got a Desmond, I heard.”
(A surprise—he’s a bit of a nerd.)
He looked down. Pretty blue.
“Yeah, I got a 2:2.”
“Well, at least it was no Douglas Hurd.”
These students at the University of East London are discussing their honours degree results: expecting a first (short for first-class honours), this poor bloke’s ended up with a lower second or 2:2, which in rhyming slang ends up as a Desmond Tutu. If he’d got a third it would have been a Douglas Hurd, which for someone aiming for a first would have been—and also means—shit.
I can see that her tits are so great
That you’re itchin’ to lick ’em, but wait:
Though she’s pretty and flirty,
She’s frigid, not dirty:
That chick is a dickteaser, mate.
The derogatory label of dicktease(r) in Australia is more commonly prick-tease(r) or cock-tease(r) in the UK or cockteaser in the US.
I know you’ve been shaggin’ at work—
Found the spot out the back where you lurk
With yer “havin’ a quickie” bird.
I won’t say a dicky bird—
Don’t worry, china. (You berk.)
Cockney rhyming slang.
When I tread in some dog dirt, the mess
That results is disgusting; unless
I can wipe all the muck
Off my shoe, the cry “yuck!”
Only rhymes with my own, I confess.
The terms dog do, poo, poop, crap and turds
Are a bunch of alternative words
For the stuff that emerges
From hounds, when their urge is
To foul up our streets. Cf. birds.
Though dog shit emerges from hounds,
People use the word also for sounds
That emerge from a mouth;
When discussions go south
Or get fraught are the usual grounds.
I thought that me bladder was stronger,
But I can’t hold it in any longer,
An’ it feels a lot wronger
When danglin’ me donger—
A bit like I’m wrestlin’ a conger.
Donger is a vulgar Australian term for the ol’ fella, so to dangle one’s donger is (for a bloke) to take a piss. Desiccated dingo dongers also feature in Aussie vernacular.
Doomscrolling: word of the year
In the year 2020, I fear.
With the world in the shitter,
We’re scrolling through Twitter
As death and disaster draw near.
Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary did in the end pick this as its word of the year in 2020, although other major dictionaries went with such contenders as pandemic and lockdown.
“You know how them escorts got flirty
With Luke? Turns out one did the dirty
On ’im.” “What, Luke got dudded?”
“No root, nah,” he shuddered,
“But he’d paid her!” “No wonder he’s shirty.”
In Australia, to do the dirty on someone means either to cheat on them or to swindle or cheat them. To dud someone also means to cheat or swindle them: if you’ve been cheated out of something then you’ve been dudded. Shirty means bad-tempered, and root here means sex.
“Mate, that bastard was fuckin’ beyond
Bloody awful...” “Psst, ducks on the pond.”
Awkward silence. “Yes, well,
As you fellows can tell—
Hi, Miss Jones—of this bloke I am fond.”
In Australia, this phrase is a signal to tone down the language and blokiness when ladies are approaching.
Their website enthralled the whole nation,
Encouraging platform migration,
But now it’s a turd:
Cory Doctorow’s word
Best describes this enshittification.
Canadian-British science fiction author Cory Doctorow coined the term enshittification in 2022 to describe how online platforms degrade as their owners extract profits by removing or neglecting the features that attracted users in the first place. So much of the commercial web in the 2020s is so obviously getting worse that it quickly caught on.
Ethan’s fangin’ his ute like a hoon,
’Cos they wanna get back pretty soon,
But at dusk hits a hole
Full of dust. “Still, our goal
Is in reach now.” “That’s bulldust, you goon.”
Bulldust or bull dust is the powdery red dust found across the Outback, which sometimes fills large potholes in which vehicles get stuck. The term is also used as an equivalent of bullshit.
fanging: driving fast
ute: utility vehicle, a bit like a pickup
hoon: young bloke who drives fast; a hooligan
You’re figjam: you think you’re so great,
But conceit is a trait Aussies hate.
“Fuck I’m good,” you’re implying,
“Just ask me”—stop trying
So hard to impress us all, mate.
Tongue-in-cheek when used of oneself, or disdainful when used to describe a colleague at work, this 1990s acronym was popularized by a 2005 song of the same name by Brisbane band Butterfingers.
“He was deep in the fisherman’s daughter!”
“What did Dad reckon, then, when he caught ’er?”
“Caught who? And whose dad?”
“This girl. Was he mad?”
“Who, the bloke we fished out of the water?”
Cockney rhyming slang.
In London, the phrase flying duck
Was a way to get out of the muck
Of them Old English curse words.
But now there are worse words,
What do Cockneys not give? Insert fuck.
Yep, “I don’t give a flying duck” has back-formed to “I don’t give a flying fuck”, which is even more confusing.
Jack got with a tourist, and brang ’er
A sheath for enclosing his wanger.
This “condom, it’s called”
Would protect as they balled:
“In Australia, we call it a franger.”
“Jason’s carrying on like,” Dan said,
“A fruit loop—he’s fucked in the head.”
“What’s made him go crazy?”
“Dunno. He ain’t lazy,
Though: smashed every tool in the shed.”
In Australia, someone who’s stupid or crazy is considered a fruit loop (after the breakfast cereal), and acting crazily is carrying on like a fruit loop. You might even say of yourself that you were a bit of a fruit loop when you did something stupid. If you’re really stupid or really crazy, you’re fucked in the head; if you’re just a bit dim, though, you’re not the sharpest tool in the shed.
If you’re hoping to simply write fuck,
I’m afraid that you’re shit out of luck.
Online filters will block it.
Instead, try—don’t knock it—
F*ck, fck, f-k, or fk, you dumb schmuck.
Sorry for the gratuitous insult. And the gratuitous everything.
The tax blokes said what to deduct;
Your accountant, however, has plucked
A bit more to include
From thin air. Mate, he’s screwed
Ya. You’re rooted. Yer buggered. Yer fucked.
That kid who mucked up in our class
Knocked over a beaker, and glass
Went all over the floor.
He was rooted before;
Now he’s totally fucked in the arse.
In Australia, if you’re rooted you’re screwed, and kids who muck up in class are acting up or messing about (although a kid who mucked up could also have messed something up or made a mistake).
When he talks of brown algae, I cough.
“You’ve just mispronounced it,” I scoff.
“The genus of Fucus
Rhymes, clearly, with mucus.”
I’m racked when he says to fuc off.
Fucus includes some of the most common seaweeds found in the British Isles, such as bladder wrack, toothed wrack and spiral wrack.
My uggs keep me cosy and warm
When I’m snuggled up during a storm.
You reckon they’re fugly?
They’re too fucking ugly?
You sheeple fear bucking the norm.
Sheepskin boots are normally worn as slippers in Australia, and are considered pretty daggy, especially when worn outside. Their local name (which, like fugly, also derives from ugly) has long been a generic term, although in capitalized form has been trademarked in the US, UK and Europe, where celebrities made the boots a fashion item in the 2000s.
When one brother the other rebuffed,
And they scuffled and tussled and roughed
Up each other a bit,
One boy huffed, “Little shit!”
Which was met with a muffled, “Get stuffed!”
The sight of yer norks leaves me weak—
How about just the teensiest peek?
Would a squiz be all right?
Hey, they’re so outtasight!
C’mon, darlin’, just give us a geek.
In Australia, geek means look, as in “give us a geek” or “have a geek at this”, and predates the introduction of the U.S. meanings of the word. In casual speech, also, Aussies often say give us for give me: “give us it here”, “give us a squiz” (a word meaning a quick but close look) and so on. Norks is a vulgar term for breasts.
“Feel the earth movin’, love?“ cried me muvver
As ’e pushed and ’is doover ’d shove ’er.
When some slovenly rover
Would get a leg over
Me mum, all the ’ouse ’d take cover.
C’mon, mate, get your arse into gear.
Put on your hi viz—park your rear
In the seat of the truck
And look busy... ah, fuck.
Yer too late—the prime minister’s here.
The general impression of size
And shape of a plane in the skies
Is its GISS. Now you know,
When it comes, it will go
By this word, like a bird when it flies.
This World War II acronym echoes an earlier word, jizz, first recorded on the west coast of Ireland in the 1920s and still in use by ornithologists in particular, for “the characteristic impression given by an animal or plant”.
I try not to swear, but I’m not
Very good around blood—I forgot
We use needles in nursing.
I’ll try without cursing.
I’ll try. Shit, I’ll give it a shot.
“Turns out that he’s one of them creeps
Who tries rootin’ a girl while she sleeps.”
“Jesus! What happened next?”
“Well, she said in her text
She just screamed at him—gave the guy heaps.”
Root here means, disturbingly, to have sex with. If you give someone heaps, you’re rubbishing, reprimanding or rebuking them. Australians often use heaps to mean “much”, as in “it took heaps longer”. It can also be used like very or really—something impressive is heaps good. And it can mean “a lot”: there was heaps of food, she had heaps to drink, I slept heaps. Giving someone heaps is giving them, in effect, a lot of harsh criticism.
In essence, this gizzum or gyss
Is the stuff that gives living its fizz.
Come again? It looks strange?
Well, the spelling did change:
It’s ejaculate, that’s what it is.
This word may relate to the Irish term above (for a lifeform’s essence, in essence). It was first recorded in the U.S. in the 1840s as meaning energy or spirit, but by the late 19th century was being used for semen. The northeastern U.S. variant jasm likely gave rise to jazz.
Makayla’s obnoxious and gobby,
As in “talks too much”; not only slobby,
But mouthy and loud.
Nonetheless, not too proud
To give gobbies (that meaning’s blowjobby).
The boyfriend who wanted to boff ’er’d
Bought Jennifer lace that was goffered,
With plaits to admire ’n’
All crimped with an iron.
Such a generous gift the guy offered!
When an adjective’s gradable, it
Helps comparisons happen: to wit,
“Black as night”, “white as snow”,
“Dull as dishwater”—though
These examples are boring as shit.
Comparisons of gradable qualities—those that allow for degrees of variation—usually take the form of as + adjective + as, although the first as can be omitted; for example, the fleece of Mary’s little lamb was white as snow, not as white as. Gradable adjectives can also be used with grading adverbs such as extremely, fairly, hugely, rather, reasonably, slightly or very. Most adjectives are gradable, but gradable isn’t.
A penniless graduate student
Met a nudist with penis protrudent.
Said his new nudie buddy,
“Here’s a thing you can study.”
Said he, “A small grant would be prudent.”
My PowerPoint slides’ ancient figures
In ivory often cause sniggers.
This fertility-goddessy,
Great-breasted odyssey?
Viewers are warned oft it triggers.
By emotions, I feel pretty bested...
I’ve gathered my thoughts now, and rested.
I’m catching my breath
After that little death...
Man, my girlfriend is truly great-breasted.
Sir Mix-a-Lot says he likes butts
That are big, and can’t lie. Brotha, whut’s
Hard to get about booty?
A great-buttocked cutie
Wit’ back ain’t so whack, Mix, ya putz.
As rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot informed us in his 1992 hit “Baby Got Back”, he admires large posteriors and is incapable of prevaricating on the matter.
“Let Me Love You”, “I Love You to Bits”,
“You’re so Sexy”, “Sex Goddess”, “Nice Tits”,
“Feeling Horny”, “Can’t Wait”,
“Please Slow Down, Girl”, “Too Late”:
Just a few of Wet Dream’s greatest hits.
Out now on Premature Records!
“Whatcha call this joint?” “I dunno, mate.
It’s a desert, I s’pose. And... no, wait...
It’s a big desert, and
There’s a shitload of sand.
It’s a Great Sandy Desert.” “Damn straight.”
The Great Sandy Desert spans much of the north of Western Australia and the southwest of Australia’s Northern Territory.
The name of these beauties? Well, it’s
Not a label decorum permits...
They leave birdwatchers smitten—
The biggest in Britain!
Over there—it’s a pair of great tits.
The largest UK tit, weighing around 18 grammes, is a green and yellow bird with a glossy black head, white cheeks and a distinctive two-syllable song. Great tits can be found from Western Europe to Eastern Siberia, and so can these birds.
To my love, I say, “Dear, why the frown?
Let us turn it at once upside-down!
Please position your arse
On this patch of dry grass.
I’m about to bestow a green gown.”
This nineteenth-century euphemism for sex has a more rustic air than most: it refers to doing it in the grass.
She fondled him, grippingly, by
The cojones—he thought he might die—
Cooing, “Grab me, my dear!”
“This is not why we’re here,”
Said the judge, in a pitch rather high.
Our group leader, named Roger, rechecks
Our group effort; it’s starting to vex
Our group members, this quirk,
As our grubby group work
Is to grind with and grope him: group sex.
Our boss likes to show his disdain
In replies, where his gruffness is plain:
Long emails get quoted
And answered with “Noted”,
Which drives his employees insane.
Our boss can be surly and blunt;
Any input becomes an affront.
This feature of roughness
Some people call gruffness.
I know what to call him; I can’t.
For a Cockney bloke, dippin’ yer wick
Means whenever yer penis—yer prick,
Todger, manhood or ’ampton—
Has lady parts clamped on.
It’s sexual congress, you dick.
Unusually, the Cockney rhyming slang Hampton Wick (an area of London near Richmond and Wimbledon) has given rise to two single-word terms for the ol’ feller, hampton and wick, with the latter leading to the seemingly candle-based euphemism for sex.
Winter harshens the parks of a city:
In the springtime, the flowers look pretty;
Children play in the summer;
Autumn leaves are no bummer;
Muddy snow and bare trees, though, are shitty.
What a headfuck: it’s left me confused
And disorientated—bemused.
He headfucked me; now
I’m a mess. Tell me, how
Does that not mean that I’ve been abused?
She fucked with my head; now she’s ducking
The fallout. Now everything’s sucking
Me under, my luck
Has run out, and just... fuck!
What a headfucking. And we’re not fucking.
He’s a he-man. He’s big and he’s strong.
He’s so muscly. His hair’s blond and long.
He’s a universe-master—
But in bed, a disaster,
On account of his minuscule dong.
Such infections cause many a sore
Round your lips (or your fanny, what’s more)...
It’s hardly poetic
To rhyme on herpetic,
Or “herpes-related”, for sure.
Herpes, which is caused by infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV), can result in blisters around the mouth (cold sores) or genitals and bottom (genital herpes). Both of these conditions are, therefore, herpetic; the former is usually associated with HSV-1 and the latter with HSV-2, but either can lead to either.
Carol’s chauvinist pig husband, Darryl,
Had her lawyers right over a barrel:
“These hogsheads of wine
Ain’t that bitch’s, they’re mine!”
“I ain’t ‘that bitch’, you swine,” rejoined Carol.
As a pilot, I secretly dreamed
Of pulling a stewardess; seemed
I was getting my wish.
Though her kiss was delish,
When she hoicked back my joystick, I screamed.
Serves him right for not calling her a flight attendant. He must work for British Airways, because he’s using the UK term pulling for picking up or seducing someone.
Holy cow! Holy smokes! Holy moly!
Holy crap! Holy mackerel! And holy
Guacamole! Holy hell!
Holy Moses, as well!
Holy shit! Holy... [Backs away, slowly.]
Holy fuck, that’s a whole lot of holy.
The honeypot ant has a bot-
tom a lot like a globular pot.
Aborigines eat them,
Declaring them sweet: “Them
Repletes taste completely shit-hot.”
Honeypot ants are various species of ant that have specialised workers (called rotunds, pleregates or repletes) whose abdomens swell with food and serve as a larder for their colony; fellow ants stroke their antennae to get them to regurgitate the stored liquid. Aboriginal Australians have long eaten them as a delicacy and used them in traditional medicine, digging down into their nests to find the repletes. Studies have shown that honeypot ant honey is effective against golden staph bacteria.
“You’ve heard about bullshit, of course—
That stuff from a trustworthy source
That’s reliably true?
Well, the horse stuff is too.”
“What horseshit. Get off your high horse.”
“How come he gets to come and I don’t?”
She was fuming. “I’ve asked, but he won’t
Give additional head
Once he’s finished in bed,
And I... I...”—and she moaned and she moant.