If you should be in Britain and
your life is on the line,
don't panic, find a telephone,
and dial nine-nine-nine.
And if you're in Australia,
when you should need to go
to hospital by ambulance,
the number's oh-oh-oh.
In Kiwi land, if you should cross
some felons on the run,
then find somewhere that's safe to hide;
seek help from one-one-one.
But if you're in the USA,
The writing's on the wall;
For they don't have a repdigit,
so, who you gonna call?
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Author Notes
Today's word: repdigit (n.) a number composed of a single repeated figure.
This most obvious example of repdigits is emergency phone numbers in many countries. The UK has 999. New Zealand is 111, and Australia 000. The US, bucking the trend, is, of course, 911.
My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.
Thanks for reading.
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