Ancient Gags in Limerick Form by Sean Playfair

Exceptionally well crafted too - just a couple of bits where the strict rhythm and rhyme falters (e. rhyming 'dieu' with 'two' and the odd surplus syllable).

Thanks Tony, for championing my brain candy. Thanks, Jack. I'm surprised you didn't mention the four-liner (due to forgetting a press of the return key) for the first limerick! Originally, I rhymed "dieu" with "deux". But an American limerick expert I showed it to a) insisted, in his mind, dieu rhymed with two, and b) "dieu" and "deux" is a homonymic rhyme (it's not in French: "dyeuh" ; "deuh" -- he heard it as "doo" ; "doo" ; or "dyoo" ; "dyoo", I think.) Anyway, the rule is, don't listen to Americans! Where are the surplus syllables? I've been active on a specialist limerick site, so tread carefully on this one!

"Where are the surplus syllables? I've been active on a specialist limerick site, so tread carefully on this one!" Well, your aggression finallly shows who you are! A word on limericks: You have to consider iambs as well as syllables and it seems to me that you have not considered either nor do you understand the basic form. "But an American limerick expert blah blah blah" There is no such thing. Paul Greco outed once again.

Not iambs, dumbo, but anapests: two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, or xxX. (An iamb is xX.) The basic form is: xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX xxX This is the stress pattern all my limericks follow. Although, now and then, I drop the first unstressed syllable at the start of a line (allowed). Also, if I add an unstressed syllable to the end of a line xxXxxXxxXx ...I use transitional anapests (TAMs), and therefore drop the first unstressed syllable on the next line xXxxXxxXx ...so that the anapests run THROUGH the piece. Anyway, sorry if I sounded aggressive, Jack. I just raised an eyebrow because I know there are no surplus syllables.

Nice. I think the success of these hangs entirely on the fact that they're compositionally sound. Biggus - peace be upon him - does exactly the same thing, recycling old Tommy Cooper and Morecombe and Wise gags in poetic form, but because his grasp of form is, ahem, somewhat wayward, it just feels forced. Very impressive!

I had some Pindaric Odes once - the doctor gave me some cream for them

macjoyce, i did not suggest limericks were iambic, i know how they work. i foolishly used the word iamb to indicate stress when i should just have used 'stress' instead. Yes, I agree that breaking the rules in form poetry is fun but it was sean who claimed that his limerick was perfect therefore it becomes playfair game to shoot it down, no? sean, i'm not sure where you have been online (and this is the trouble with online-learning) but i was taught that a limerick consisted of (and still is, as i understand, taught in english schools (check a copy of the national curriculum)) syllables 8,8,6,6,8 and that the basic form is xXxxXxxX and so on as per lear. i guess you are working to some american theme.

although some claim lines 3 and 4 should be 5 syllables as per this: di dum di di dum di di dum di dum di di dum di di dum di dum di di dum di dum di di dum di dum di di dum di di dum either way, i can't work out if you are didi, didum or dumdum. :-)

What a bonus! Some excellent limericks - and a refresher course in metrical forms. Blimey, I'd forgotten all that stuff. All those nights spent trying to figure my trochees from my spondees and my amphibrachs when I should have been down in the JCR. Where are you, Brooosh? I'd love to hear what you make of 'transitional anapests'. Well done, Sean. I was dead chuffed with a limerick I once came up with which included a punning line of French - until someone pointed out to me that my understanding of French idioms was woeful!

First, thanks Mac, Rokkit and Alan for your kind words. As for Dumbo: well, it's difficult to gauge whether he's (or, indeed, she's) disingenuously trying to get a rise out of me. But allow me to take on the points one by one. "macjoyce, i did not suggest limericks were iambic, i know how they work. i foolishly used the word iamb to indicate stress when i should just have used 'stress' instead." You at least inadvertently suggested limericks were iambic ; if the problem is, as you now suggest, you hadn't mastered the vocabulary of verse (and thought "iamb" meant "stress") then I suppose that's a LITTLE less embarrassing. But this gaffe hardly empowers you with the air of authority one needs to challenge someone's knowledge of a basic poetic form. Especially when the person you are challenging does. "Yes, I agree that breaking the rules in form poetry is fun but it was sean who claimed that his limerick was perfect therefore it becomes playfair game to shoot it down, no?" As Mac pointed out, at no point did I say my limericks were perfect. In fact, I agreed with Jack about the ambiguity of the Dieu/two rhyme, and pointed out myself the typesetting error with the first one. Did I claim there were no added syllables, and they follow the current recognised rules of form? Yes. And nobody has pulled me up on any specific form-lacking parts of these, yet. When they do -- rather than making weak statements like "American limerick experts don't exist" -- we will be getting to the heart of the matter. "sean, i'm not sure where you have been online (and this is the trouble with online-learning)" I could be equally snooty about school education: "That Miss Higgins just knew about Jane Austen, and saw there were these things called limericks on the syllabus, and remembered that Lear bloke from primary school...etc..." I've been in a community of people who live and breathe limericks, and even if you were taught by the UK's premier limerick professor, he still probably wouldn't know more than they collectively. "but i was taught that a limerick consisted of (and still is, as i understand, taught in english schools (check a copy of the national curriculum)) syllables 8,8,6,6,8 and that the basic form is xXxxXxxX" First of all, you can't teach that a limerick consists of so many syllables. You can't in any form of metred verse. Because it's not that simple. Allow me to demonstrate... A standard limerick consists of five lines. The first two and the fifth consist of three anapestic feet ; lines 3 and 4 consist of two anapestic feet. A foot, in this case, is three syllables (with the pattern xxX). Now the first foot in a line can have the one unstressed syll removed. (I've also seen both unstressed removed which is also not actually breaking the form.) The last foot can have an unstressed syll added at its end, again perfectly acceptable. So the range of syllables in lines 1,2 and 5 is between 7 and 10. Any added or removed syllabes that I haven't described (eg add one to the start of the second foot) would be considered form-breaking or sloppy at the very least. But all my limericks follow the rules, just not what you have in your mind as "the basic form". If there is a basic form, then it's the feet without any added or skipped sylls (so 9,9,6,6,9) -- but again, syllable counting isn't the point. It's understanding feet, which your teacher either thought was too much for a school kid, or else didn't grasp his/herself. As for me checking the NC to see if it says what you claim it says about the basic form of a limerick -- I don't need to check to know it doesn't say that, in the same way I don't need to stand next to a falling tree to know it makes a sound. But if you can quote a current verifiable NC source on this, I will check. I will apologise on the forum, and donate £100 to a charity of your choice. I'll even show you a receipt. "and so on as per lear." Not sure what you mean, as Lear did start a lot of his nonsense rhymes with that variation on 3 anapestic feet, but he didn't have a standard template for the rest of the limerick. For instance, he sometimes used for lines 2 or 5: xxXxxXxxX Sometimes he would stay with xXxxXxxX In Lear's one below, he varies with an added syll at the end of lines... There was an Old Man of the Wrekin Whose shoes made a horrible creaking But they said, 'Tell us whether, Your shoes are of leather, Or of what, you Old Man of the Wrekin?' The first line being xXxxXxxXx Now you can argue that this anapestic structure has taken on the form of three amphibrachs. But what you CANNOT argue is that this line has EIGHT bloody SYLLABLES! Anyway, Lear used homonymic rhymes (as seen above) and they're generally frowned upon these days. Things change. "i guess you are working to some american theme." I guess I should be happy you backed down from "You don't understand the basic form" to this. But you guess incorrectly, my friend. From the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "The limerick consists of five lines, usually rhyming aabba, and the metre is roughly anapestic, with two feet in the 3rd and 4th lines, and three feet in the others." Though, as ever, there are variant forms, this is the internationally recognised standard. (Your idea of the basic form falls within the rules, but you misunderstand the scope of the rules. They're not AS tight as you think. The syll count is a red herring.) And it's the standard I work to -- as my work shows. What does your work show us, dumbo? Not a lot really considering your sole literary contribution to this site away from the forums seems to be writing on your profile: "I am the Michelin 5* hamburger man" Hardly a repertoire that provides evidence of somebody who has licked form poetry.

Sean... One thing I've learned to my cost on ABC is that there's no shortage of people who will try to get a rise out of you. I've found that the best policy is just to ignore them. They'll soon give up and flutter off to settle on the next available annoyee. "There once was a fellow called Dumbo..." Hm... where's that Rhyming Dictionary...

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=dumbo&typeofrhyme=perfect&org1... There once was a fellow called Dumbo Whose knowledge of form wasn't jumbo. So why all the scorn For a new bloke called Sean? (No, we won't have to contact Columbo.)

Well, how strange is that? I'd come up with 'jumbo' (and 'mumbo') and 'Columbo', too. We were obviously both working in the same direction with it... Now I've got this image of Dumbo with a dodgy eye, a big ol' stogie and a rumpled mac. I wonder if we might hear 'just one more thing...'

I hope so, Alan. I do love to learn.

It's not really stray syllables, so much as the odd unnaturally stressed sentence. Well, only one, really: "A big word. And it sure rings a bell." You need to drop the 'and' or else the only way this can be read so it scans is by taking the first clause as an anapest. It naturally goes more like unstress/stress/unstress, and sounds overly compacted as an anapest.

There is always going to be disputes about strings of monosyllabic words and their stresses. It's unavoidable. Some people work on the premise that the first "strong" (I'm not sure either) word will be stressed. This is probably why you stressed "big". You saw it as the first "important" word and wanted to stress it. Personally, I go with what I hear in such instances. I hear "big WORD" (like that taunt at school: "Ooh, big WORD!" Also, with such a monosyllable fest, I'm relying on my reader having followed the metre from the start, and staying in that rhythm. Unnatural stress is to be avoided, but it's not the same no-no a surplus (as opposed to added) syllable is. Lear's was full of unnatural stresses (who says, "There WAS" in normal speech anyway!)

I read it as an anapest, Jack. If you drop the 'And', it doesn't work so well - to my ear, anyway. It's a syllable short. Actually, it even sounds okay (to me) if you put a stress on 'big' - even if that doesn't match the stress patterns in 'campanology' and 'Quasimodo'. Here's one of Lear's limericks: There was an Old Person whose habits, Induced him to feed upon rabbits; When he'd eaten eighteen, He turned perfectly green, Upon which he relinquished those habits. He could have elided 'Upon' to ''pon', which would have given him the correct number of syllables and stresses - but I don't think it would have sounded so good. This reminds me of English seminars. Good stuff!

Yes, good aint it. Bit confused on your comments about this line 2. InDUCED him to FEED upon RABbits... is anapestic and works. At least if you don't stress either syll in "upon". Pronouncing "u-PON" would cause a problem, but I never thought to following that metre. Besides, only newsreaders emphasise prepositions so. But changing to "pon" loses a syllable doesn't it? Then it would be xXxxXxXx ...leaving us with an iambic feel in the latter part. Again, I reiterate, there is not a problem with having nine sylls in a limerick line. (Or ten: see the last line of my Lear example...) There is not a "correct" number of syllables (though the range is 7-10 ; at a real push 11 with xxXxxXxxXxx) The important thing is that there are three anapestic feet -- which we have in every line in this Lear example.

Think Alan means line 5, rather than 2. "I read it as an anapest, Jack." Really? This is a conversation I'd like to have in person, because I just can't make it sound natural. How much you stress 'big' and 'word' depends on their context, I agree. 'Big word' can be an iamb or a trochee without any trouble. It's 'a big' being two unstressed syllables that doesn't work for me.

Yes, I did mean line 5, Sean. From Wikipedia, some old favourites: "[Some poets] subvert the structure of the true limerick. There was a young man from Japan Whose limericks never would scan. When asked why this was, He answered 'because I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can. Similarly, A decrepit old gas man named Peter, While hunting around for the meter, Touched a leak with his light. He arose out of sight, And, as anyone can see by reading this, he also destroyed the meter. And, A limerick fan from Australia Regarded his work as a failure: His verses were fine Until the fourth line. Similarly, There was a young man named Wyatt Who was extremely quiet And then one day He faded away Also, There once was a man named Budden Lee Whose limericks ended so suddenly and th- And, There once was a man from the sticks Who liked to compose limericks. But he failed at the sport, For he wrote 'em too short. Or, There was a young man from Hong Kong Who found limericks much too long. This is taken a stage further by a trio of verses: There was a young man of Arnoux Whose limericks stopped at line two. ...and by extension... There was a young man of Verdun ...which if completed would be a self-contradiction. Taking the final step would be the limerick about the young man from Saint Paul, which would be self-contradictory if it were told at all." It seems the only rule is that there are no rules - in limericks as in any other form of writing... which suits an old anarchist like me. Of course, there are probably a few brush strokes on the Mona Lisa which could have been more carefully applied, but... Check out some of mine if you're interested, Sean: http://www.abctales.com/story/alan_benefit/a-few-of-me-limericks http://www.abctales.com/story/alan_benefit/a-few-more-of-me-limericks (apologies for the vulgar self-promotion)

Ah, I see. My bad. I think what you mean then is with "pon" Lear would have matched the exact metre of lines 1, 2 and 5. Some people prefer that technique: lines 1, 2 and 5 match exactly metre-wise, as do lines 3 and 4 (though the 1/2/5 metre may of course alter slightly to the 3/4 metre). As mentioned before, I prefer transitional anapests. Gives a nice flow all the way through. Some, like Lear often, don't mind too much as long as each line falls within the three-foot anapest parameters. I've noticed Lear was fond of ending with three complete anapestic feet, but usually dropped a syllable at the start of the first line. Each, indeed, to his own. Breaking the form is fun too. That last overlong metre-less last line thing has been done many times. I did a non-completion one too: (So there's no confusion about this, the first stress is on "off", okay?!) You break off a wee part from a mass. You break off a wee date with a lass. And the last of the ways To employ the same phrase: You break off...

Just looked at your first set, Alan. They're very good and very funny. How are you pronouncing "myopic". I would go for my-OH-pic, but your limerick requires MY-opic. Also, de-TAIL is a mis-stress for me. Maybe not for an American. From where do you hail? Yeah, loved 'em. I'll look at the second set now. EDIT: Was lol. That last one was so supernaturally immature I'm almost ashamed it's the one I laughed at most! Mis-stress niggles: post OFF-ice you'll get away with ; not sure about EYE-con-o-CLAS-tic !!!

Nice to see that most of alan's limericks conform to the one i suggested as original. heh. I'll get back to you (sean) about your (predicted) response later. This £100 thing... I reckon you are lying ... I reckon you have have googled yourself silly all afternoon and, having found nothing, have made that bet. Not being stupid, I notice you say "recent" and, upon reading back, it isn't clear what the bet is so I think you need to clarify the following: 1. Define recent (the NC has only been going for less than ten years - which is pretty recent in poetic terms i reckon) 2. And: are you saying that if I can prove that the words "...following the syllable pattern 8,8,6,6,8" are contained within the NC you will donate to charity? Why are you talking about iambs? didn't you and macVoice say they didn't exist in Limericks? Alan benefit was correct - I was out to show your true persona- I really couldn't care less about poetic forms ... nice to see that you are as insecure as i thought you would be - hence your long-winded response. Someone secure in their knowledge would have ignored me or told me to eff off unless they were some-one whose head was so stuffed up their own arse that their body has no choice but to spew shit in volcanic proportions every now and then. :-)

Did somebody smell something?

A bit more coal for the fire. A sean who always played fair threw a limerick into the air. Then to start a debate shouted "I HATE...WRITING LIMERICKS" SO THERE!

A discussion by Abctalers Bred a thread full of angry derailers When implored to desist They replied: 'Are you pissed?' And then there was no proper ending.