The subreddit /rlimericks runs a weekly challenge to rhyme a difficult word in a limerick. I’ve had a couple of goes, which has reawakened my interest in this verse form.
What’s a limerick?
Named after the county in Ireland – or possibly the song ‘Won’t You Come to Limerick’ – the limerick is a five-line verse form with a set meter and rhyme scheme. The first, second and fifth lines have eight syllables and rhyme with each other, while the third and fourth have five syllables and rhyme. There’s no rule against all five lines rhyming (see below). They’re usually comic verse, as in this example:
There was a young fellow called Tate
Who booked dinner for two at 8 – 8
But I will not relate
What it was that young Tate
And his tête-à-tête ate at eight eight
Popularising the form
Edward Lear (1812 -1888) popularised an established form, producing 212 published examples for the amusement of the Victorian gentry. In hindsight, his output was quite poor, mostly relying on using the same word at the end of lines one and five. This was the traditional form, but restricts the writer somewhat.
Using the same word to end the first and fifth lines saved him trying to find a rhyme for Thermopylae, I suppose.
Being comic verse, the format can be played with. WS Gilbert, out and off of Gilbert & Sullivan, is credited with one such:
There was an old man from St Bees1
Who was stung on the nose by a wasp
When asked if it hurt
He said “no it didn’t,
I’m so glad it wasn’t a hornet”
My own writ
I’ve written a few limericks, but only came back to them again when I stumbled upon the subreddit. A favourite of Mrs S’s is one I wrote in the late 80s called ‘Yuk!’
With scarcely concealed delight
Christopher switched off the light
Bit a chunk from the cat
Spat it out on the mat
And rolled around, laughing, all night
Judge for yourself the mental state of the seventeen year old who wrote that. Though this isn’t the most disgusting Limerick I’ve written2.
An earlier one, which I wrote during my ‘O’ levels, summarises MacBeth, which I was studying at the time. The inspiration is Stanley J Sharpless’ summary of Hamlet (link).
King Duncan was mortally bedded
And MacBeth’s killing hand was well redded
His Mrs went gaga
And to finishes the saga
In vengeance MacBeth was beheaded
I’ve done a few other of Shakespeare’s play. I’ll blog them at some point.
Limerick accent challenge
In the time between my ‘O’ levels and this year, my output dried to a trickle. One I wrote maybe ten years ago is an accent challenge. Younger daughter hates this one, because it makes her talk like me. In other words, correctly.
A Mathematician reflects
“G&Ts help with my maths”
He leans back and casually laughs
“A reduction in mass
Of the gin in my glass
Helps me travel binomial paths”
If you think that doesn’t rhyme, you’re wrong.
Saturday Reddit challenge
Yesterday’s3 challenge was to rhyme the word ‘philodox’. I had to look up the word – it means someone who loves their own opinions and thoughts.
It’s a interesting challenge, since the word doesn’t fit into the standard meter requirements of a limerick. This means breaking the standard rhythm a bit. But that’s fine, as long as it’s done consistently.
I started with a search for words and phrases that would match the word ‘philodox’. Orthodox and heterodox are related terms4, also Goldilocks, pair of crocs, Robert Knox5, letterbox and cotton socks.
I went with the last one, since there’s a British expression ‘bless your cotton socks’, equivalent to ‘bless your heart’. Though a crossover involving Goldilocks and the surgeon involved in the Burke & Hare murders would be a challenge in itself. The idea of blessing and words involved with philosophy and theology seemed to fit. First draft had ‘sinnin’’ rhyming with ‘opinion’, but that didn’t work. So the idea of socks in general and things that are worn on the feet also arrived. There’s a lot of them.
How to make a short story of it all? My experience of the type of person who would be a philodox is a person set in their ways, who would suffer any consequences if it meant they could say they were right. So how about he insists on wearing uncomfortable hosiery, despite the norm is to wear comfy socks? From there the story came about in a few minutes:
An ancient and crabby old philodox
Denouncing establishment orthodox
Declared “Tights of nettle,
Or hose made of metal,
Are a fine substitution for cotton socks.”
Quite a lot of declaring goes on in these poems.
- Or Dundee in some versions ↩︎
- That’s about a curate named Muggeridge. ↩︎
- 1st of August. Pinch, punch… ↩︎
- Meaning ‘correct opinion’ and ‘different opinion’, respectively ↩︎
- The surgeon involved in the Burke & Hare murders in Edinburgh in in the 1820s. ↩︎
