Came across this and thought it so good it needed sharing:

There's a wonderful family called Stein,
there's Gert and there's Epp and there's Ein;
Gert's poems are bunk,
Epp's statues are junk,
And no-one can understand Ein.

marian2-

It took a couple of read-throuhgs to 'get' it.
It didn't jump out right away as anything clever.
I'm just a bit slow, but I do have a working knowledge of Ein.


Jack

Perhaps Ein has first born syndrome.

For some more odd ball lims:

[www.limericks.org];

Hugh I enjoyed these - a friend is having a 40th dinner/dance and asked that all the guests bring a limerick to paste in her scrap book so I thought I should scribble my own; I find myself "de dum de dum-ming" a few ideas round and know I need to aabba but is there a correct or ideal formula?

Alexandra, here's a crash course on limericks at another site, read this:

[www.emule.com] />
Les

Yeah, there are dozens of sites are out there explaining limericks. Sadly, all of them have flaws of one kind or another. Take the excellent Pentatette site just mentioned, for example, [www.limericks.org].

Here is the sample limerick they give for the student:

There ONCE was an OLD man from WHEEL-ing
Who HAD a pe-CUL-i-ar FEEL-ing
Said the SIGN on the DOOR
Please don't SPIT on the FLOOR —
He JUMPED up and SPAT on the CEIL-ing.


That first line is imperfect. No one would say it that way. The ear wants to hear the stress on MAN, not on OLD, so the rhythm is forced.

That is, if you were to to read only the first line, not knowing it was intended as a limerick, you would hear it as,

there once WAS an old MAN from WHEELing

I don't like JUMPED up and SPAT ... either. Normally one would say jumped UP.

Here is a skeleton outline below. The syllables NOT in parentheses MUST appear in every limerick. The syllables IN parentheses are extra syllables allowed.

(di)di DUM di di DUM di di DUM (di)(di) RHYME WORD 'A'
(di)di DUM di di DUM di di DUM (di)(di) RHYME WORD 'A'
(di)di DUM di di DUM (di)(di) RHYME WORD 'B'
(di)di DUM di di DUM (di)(di) RHYME WORD 'B'
(di)di DUM di di DUM di di DUM (di)(di) RHYME WORD 'A'

The beginner would do well to only work with the basic (middle) 8 syllables until the ear starts to hear the beat consistently

Re: [www.limericks.org] />
Super site, Hugh - thanks. I especially liked the one starting 'An amorous MA'

Thank you all, I will see what I can come up with: Hugh the JUMPED doesn't jar with me per se but I would prefer it to run "so he jumped..." - if the parenthesised syllables are used must they be consistently used?

Consistent with the rhyme sounds, yes.

I used to read words in my store (last syllable rhymes on lines 1, 2 & 5
(When) I used to read words in my story(penultimate syllable rhymes on all three)
(When) I used to read words in my storybook (three antepenultimate rhymes)

There was an unfortunate man
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was
He said: "It's because
I put as many words into the last line as ever I possibly can."

The old English version went:

There was a young man from Darjeeling,
Who went on a bus-ride to Ealing.
It said on the door:
Please don't spit on the floor.
So he leaned back and spat on the ceiling.

Lots of Darjeeling lims out there. That one may very well be the original. Perfectly composed, too, scan wise.

Notice the first two and last one lines: all are three metric feet with iamb, anapest, anapest (the basic 8 syllables), trailing one syllable at the end. What is that, catalectic, or acatalectic? I never can remember. Anyway, three beats, and a trailing unstressed syllable.

Then the third line, for the second rhyme sound, has the minimum iamb, anapest (2 beats)

The third is anapest, anapest (an extra first syllable)

Then the fifth line is all anapests and a trailer. That one about the man from Japan putting so many words in the last line is often good advice. The extra (first) syllable there, for some reason, gives it more of a Barrrrumpbump! feel.

I love the purity of this one from Hugh:


(di)di DUM di di DUM di di DUM (di)(di)
(di)di DUM di di DUM di di DUM (di)(di)
(di)di DUM di di DUM (di)(di)
(di)di DUM di di DUM (di)(di)
(di)di DUM di di DUM di di DUM (di)(di)


A triumph of form over function, Mr. Clary!

You have no idea how much I wanted end with ... titty tung. Still, family group and all, innit.

Two for Hugh.

There was a young lady of Warwick,
Who lived in a castle histarwick,
On the damp castle mould
She contracted a could,
And the doctor prescribed paregarwick.

There was a young person named Tate
Who went out to dine at 8.8,
But I'd hate to relate
What that person named Tate
And his tete-a-tete ate at 8.8.

The girls who frequent picture-palaces
Have no time for psycho-analysis,
So although Doctor Freud
Gets rather annoyed,
They still cling to their long-standing phallacies.

This is by Philip Heseltine alias Peter Warlock alias Rab Noolas alias... musician, critic, drunk and suicide. according to his biographer, Cecil Gray, Warlock produced dozens of limericks, all now lost or swallowed by Anon.