Our next destination for limericks is Kirkwall, capital of the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland.

It's pronounced KIRK-wul there (perhaps you UKers will have a better grasp of this, but when we visited there a few years back, that's roughly what I heard.) Each Christmas day, they have a quaint little tradition, "the ba'"game.

Enjoy!

Wordmatic

Well that doesn't sound easy.

Mine will be sent after I think for a bit...

It will be tricky I agree to find rhymes ending in -IRKw'll (schwa vowel sound) so I guess there will be a few near rhymes floating about for this one.

Mine will arrive when I've thought of them.

I apologize to all for being so distracted that I just thought of an interesting place that I had been instead of considering for even one second that it would be difficult to rhyme.

But as I just said to one person in a PM, as this is not OEDILF, I am not going to be much of a stickler about the perfection of rhymes and will be much more impressed by humor, goofiness, and lack of "redeeming social importance." That's an American legal phrase used in obscenity cases for you persons overseas.

Enjoy the near-rhyme madness!

WM

Well, mine's in, and there definitely isn't any redeeming social importance!

As to Bob's post, ignorance is bliss. I didn't have to worry about the schwa vowel sound because, after all these years talking about it on Wordcraft, I still haven't figured out what that sound is.

No need to apologize, Wordmatic. You have challenged us!

I have received four entries from three of you. There must be more out there in the ether!

WM

S.H.U....Get yours in! I will wriggle his proverbial elbow.

I'll do one (or more)m tonight

Hello?

Is anybody there?

The game stands static at four entries from three people. I'll wait till Monday then post what I have.

I realize that the Orkneys are windswept and desolate at this time of year, but you've got to be enthralled by the Aurora Borealis!

Nudgingly yours,
Wordmatic

I'll get to work tonight and post tomorrow.

I sent a couple yesterday but this was, although it doesn't look it at first, one of the most difficult words we've had.

please count me OUT on this one.

I yield to those who can rhyme Kirkwall. ... but I have submitted one just for fun.

~~~~~ jerry

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry thomas,

Here we are finally. In the end we have many fine, creative solutions to the problem of a town that cannot spark its rhyme:

From BobHale :

A young lass's father in Kirkwall
Of her boyfriend said "Sally, this jerk will
Let you down, run away
If you'd like him to stay
I'll persuade him, or maybe my dirk will.

As she toured round Orkneys at Kirkwall
She asked the political circle
"Weisst du nicht, das ich bin
Die deutsche Kanzlerin?
Und, ja doch, heisse ich Angela Merkel."

From Bethree5 :

A hot-headed elder from Kirkwaa
Would join the scrum like a young Turk. “Ba’
May be for loonies
But I, like all Doonies,
Love bashing my head on a brick wa’.

From Kalleh :

There once was a lad from Scotch Kirkwall
Who dazzled his lass, a sweet clerk (dull!).
He'd sing and he'd fiddle
And tickle her middle,
But talk of their marriage? He'd circle!

From Richard:

A man at the airport in Kirkwall
Booked seats from a hole in his work wall.
So slow was his station
That folks in frustration
Took to calling the place this man's "shirk wall"

Young Paul was a Scotsman from Kirkwall
Who had a magnificent dirk. All
The girls there were just
Quite frantic with lust
And hoping they'd manage to jerk Paul.

And from Jerry, who says he's not competing, but why not?:

Said a young man who lived in the Orkneys,
"Keep the beef; I'll eat pork, please."
We once heard his chuckles
While eating pig knuckles
But he almost never eats pork knees.

And from me:

It's never too easy in Kirkwall
To rhyme the town's name without work--all
The people speak strangely,
Their diphthongs deranged-ly
Will scramble your brains like a murk-maul.


Obviously, to rhyme "Kirkwall," you need to make up words, slip into a foreign language or change the subject altogether.

This is hard. May I declare everyone the winner? I loved Bethree's head-bashing Doonie, Jerry's pork knees, and Kalleh's clerk (dull).

But I have to give the prize to Bob for his pair--the first in the usual limerick tradition and the second the most outrageously inventive rhyme for the town in question: Merkel--though my German is extremely rusty-to-nonexistent, but I got the gist.

Take it away, Bob!

Wordmatic

A worthy winner. We had a similar idea about trying to use that most Scottish of weapons, the dirk, but I think Bob wielded his with greater precision than did I with mine.

Ah, the old "if-in-doubt-bamboozle-them-with-a-foreign-language" trick.

Never fails.

I'll think for a bit and post a new place name soon.

Well I was impressed that you achieved meaning, meter and rhyme in a foreign language.

WM

AH, that reminds me... continued in separate thread.