Friday, May 12, 2006

Limerick Day, May 12th


Limerick Day

Yeah! It's Limerick Day!

Actually, I've never been a big fan of limericks. Mostly because I was annoyed when first line would end with the same word as the last line, like this limerick:

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, "It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!"

Yes, beard does rhyme with beard. Brilliant!

That sort of lingual laziness just doesn't captivate my interest. But, according to this site, limericks simply are poems with five lines and an aabba rhyme scheme, kinda like the beginning of a sonnet. If I just think of a limerick as just the beginning of a sonnet... it gives me a whole new perspective of this art form. I will just try to come up with the rest of the sonnet in my head. (Or, probably not. But, I can pretend that I am that creative.)

This site has mathematical limericks. Yeah, you know you want to read a limerick about pi. Okay, here it is:

If inside a circle a line
Hits the center and goes spine to spine
And the line's length is "d"
the circumference will be
d times 3.14159 (Mathematical Limericks)

Or, this site that puts movie reviews into limericks and haikus. Bad movies get limericks. Here is the review for "AI"

At best, this movie was creepy,
but mostly it made me sleepy.
Part of an appalling new trend
of flicks with no end
leaving the audience needing to peepee! (Dimspace Poetic Movie Reviews)

Have a happy Limerick Day!

6 comments:

CoastalCAGardener said...

Happy Limerick day to you, too!
Actually, I think math limericks are A) a fun way to memorize dreadful details and B) probably written by someone posessed by mathematical thoughts all the time. I know I spout limericks about work (I'm a computer admin) and hobbies. This year's work limerick is this:

Exclaimed a user "Now I see,
The way to get help from IT
is to explain every tap
made before it went "splat"
Cuz they can't seem to use ESP"

Of course I then foist these on my co-workers, hoping that they don't make too many remarks on my similarity to a "Vogon".

Soccer Dad said...

Here's a physics limerick my father taught me:
There was once a young woman named Bright,
Who could travel faster than light.
She went out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned the previous night.

Erin aka- absent-minded secretary said...

coastal: I just taped your limerick to my monitor so that I will always remember to "explain every tap". :)

soccer dad: I love the phrase "In a relative way"

Thanks for the smile!

Tolkien Boy said...

When I can't sleep, I compose limericks. They're some of my favorite poems.

Many of them, however, are unpresentable.

We have to go back to my mission for the decent ones:

"This elder's an expert at bashin',
baseball, car innards, and fashion;
and I think, on the whole
his bowels are full,
but I don't think they're full of compassion!"

Unknown said...

I'm celebrating Limerick Day on my blog at www.worddaze.blogspot.com. Thanks for your suggestions; I especially like the movie review site. Have you seen the Four Word Film Review site at www.fwfr.com?
B. Backman

Erin aka- absent-minded secretary said...

Tolkien Boy: Share more! Share more!

Logophile: Like the blog, I think that I am going to have to check you out more often because I like your holidays better than mine.