Okay Wordcrafters, here's your next venue for the limerick: Hong Kong.

Please send me your entries via PM, and I will announce a winner when I have at least 5 limericks.

Now, get going!

Where I'm from, Hong Kong is pronounced Horng Korng. But it still rhymes with dorng.

<duck>

For what it's worth, I'm in.

Valentine, we think alike.

(Mine is in, by the way.)

Mine is in, too.

shufitz: rumor has it that we type alike, too.

Wow...I already have 8, and I don't even have Richard's yet. I'll wait a day or two to post the winner, but I've had some excellent entries.

quote:

Originally posted by Valentine: Mine is in, too.

I trust you're refering to your limerick?

Last call for limericks.

I am out of town now, but I'll be back this weekend and I'll post a winner. There are some exceptional ones, and I wish I could give more than one award.

Well, fellow limerickers, I just spent a lot of time evaluating every single limerick and accidentally hit some mysterious button that deleted every blankety blank thing I wrote. How I did that, I don't know. So sorry! I will try again, but I don't think I'll do that tonight.

I managed to do that once and I don't know how, either. Bill Gates is smiling smugly...

It was a bad Internet night for me. Besides that, I tried to install Firefox and now my desktop looks like a disaster zone...and I can't figure out how to uninstall it. I should have just gone to bed early!

I have an event this afternoon, but will get to the limericks tonight. I apologize for the delay.

Here's how to uninstall Firefox.

But I doubt that that will do much to clear up your desktop. I've installed FF dozens of times, and have never seen any untoward changes to my desktop. What exactly do you mean by "disaster zone"?

I've sent a belated entry, and then another long note about fixing your firefox problem! Valentine, she explains in the Linguistics 101 thread that she installed FF 3.0 to her desktop, so uninstalling should remove all, or most, of the icons from her desktop.

Wordmatic

Unfortunately Firefox is not on my install/uninstall list. I perhaps inadvertently uninstalled it? I also can't open it today, though I was able to last night. Perhaps there are demons in my computer?

Once again I will try to post the limericks, and this time I'll be more mindful of the buttons I click!

The limericks this time were outstanding. Thanks so much for all your creativity and hard work. Choosing one was very hard; you are all winners!

Wordmatic's

While riding around in Hong Kong
My taxi ran over a long
Cotillion of ducks,
And the driver yelled, "Shucks!
They were Bejing, delicious--it's wrong!"

Hmmm, very nice, WM, though a little naughty. I had a little trouble with the meter of line 5.

Richard's travelogue limericks:

If you're thinking of touring Hong Kong
And you think it's all crowded, you're wrong.
If it's quietness you seek
There's Victoria Peak
Whose tram lifts you clear from the throng.

There's a harbour in Southern Hong Kong -
Aberdeen - take the 'bus, it's not long.
"You want Sampan ride?
Lady, just get inside
You see sights as we sail along".

There's a market in central Hong Kong
Selling birds, you can hear all their song.
Within a few paces
There are plant-selling places
You'll smell them as you walk along.

So get yourself off to Hong Kong
Where the fun and excitement is strong.
Although it's not my land
It's a wonderful island...
So visit - you can't go far wrong.

Nicely done. These were the most informative of the limericks, with only a few minor technical difficulties. I might like a "zinger," though.

Valentine's:

These days in the port of Hong Kong
The air has a very wrong pong
Its nights insalubrious
And days quite lugubrious
Because of a cruelly strong tong.

I loved the "pong" and "tong," as well as the "insalubrious" and "lugubrious." Plus, the "wrong pong" and "strong tong" were such excellent rhymes. You definitely have the talent and should be submitting on OEDILF. However, I am a bit of a stickler for humor.

Bob's:

A visitor approaching Hong Kong,
Said, "I think that the naming is wrong.
This harbour's not fragrant
In fact it's quite flagrant,
It has an unspeakable pong.

The championship of Mah-Jong
Was held in a hall in Hong Kong.
There was laughter and smiles
From this night on the tiles,
But no women, no wine and no song.

Another limerick using "pong" and I had to look it up. I also liked the "fragrant" and "flagrant." Bob won't be here for a month, so he really wasn't in the running.

Shufitz's:

A gentleman raised in Hong Kong
Possessed an incredible dong.
This noteworthy prick
Was both massive and thick,
And I shudder to tell you how long.

Very nice, though perhaps a bit too off-color for Wordcraft? I was in stitches, though.

Jerry's:

A diminutive man from Hong Kong
Used to toke on a pipe or a bong.
Then we heard of his death,
Caused by shortness of breath;
He was so short he couldn't belong.

A vocalist fresh from Hong Kong
Says pessimistic forecasters are wrong.
He wagered his fate
On some choice real estate
Which he purchased one night for a song.

Shorty Long was exiled from Hong Kong,
Where brief appellations are wrong.
His name was the sort
Which when shortened to "Short,"
Insured he could never belong.

And the Winner is Jerry's:

Dialectically viewing Hong Kong,
Their Chinese seems to sound like a song,
With a long tonal range
Quite unlikely to change.
Is the sarong concealing a thong?

On a word board, how could I pass up this one? Plus, I loved the thought of the sarong concealing a thong. While we might link the first 4 lines a little better with the 5th, it's a real winner! Your turn, Jerry!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Although Bob made reference to it, not everyone knows that the name "Hong Kong" is a transliteration of the Chinese for "Fragrant Harbour".

And as Bob says, not a very accurate description - although it's probably more fragrant now than it was a century ago.

I think I screwed up sending my limerick.

My limerick concerning Hong Kong
Was sent off to Kalleh quite wrong
Its path went awry
So she didn't spy
The dinged dong of Hong Kong’s Lu Wong

my error ...... according to the rhyming dictionary that i consulted, "Antofagasta" has no rhymes.

New word ..... CANNES (pronounced exactly like "can."

Deadline is 28 July 2008.

~~~~~ jerry

An earthquake hit Antofagasta.
A seven point seven disasta
It shook up their school
Overheated the tool
Of an autoerotic headmasta

This masturbatory headmasta
Was saved in this mighty disasta
By cooling his tool,
For he was no fool,
By applying a hot mustard plasta

quote:

my error ...... according to the rhyming dictionary that i consulted, "Antofagasta" has no rhymes.

Those living in Antofagasta
Are rarely seen noshing on pasta.
It gives them the willies --
They'd sooner eat chillies
Since pasta is just a disasta.

quote:

pasta is just a disasta.

Does "pasta" really rhyme with "disasta" in England?

I tried to fit in "canasta" but was afraid no one remembered the game.

Sorry, Proofreader. I think perhaps that PM was deleted, so I didn't have a record of your wonderful limericks. When you sent them to me again, I very much remembered them. Here they are folks:

If you’re buying a suit in Hong Kong
Steer clear of the cross-eyed Lu Wong
The tailor who’s known
For making men groan
By dressing their genitals wrong

His scrunching a customer’s dong,
This inept suitmaker Lu Wong,
Is why people know
that’s the place to go
To get your dong dinged in Hong Kong

Hey, Jer, can you please start a new thread for your limerick game?

Thanks so much.

Whew! I think I learned a few new words on this thread. Now what cannes we do with Cannes? heh heh.

WM

P.S. Proofreader, I'm positive many people on this board remember canasta, though it's 50 years since I last played it.

quote:

Does "pasta" really rhyme with "disasta" in England?

Well, since the word doesn't exist...

Mind you, had I thought of Canasta I'd have used it.

Then there's Mount Shasta, and Shasta soda (which may be long out of business).

Then there's ¡Ya basta! (very roughly, "That's enough!").

quote:

Well, since the word doesn't exist...

Perhaps that was your "typical English humour," but I am sure he was asking whether in the English accent, with the dropping of the "r" in the last syllable, if "disaster" and "pasta" rhyme. It's a good question really. I suspect they don't because with pasta you add an "r" in the last syllable, but in "disaster" you drop it.

I can say that pasta/disaster rhyme for me... or near as makes no difference, anyway.
Both end in schwa.

Perhaps I should have been more specific.
Pasta would be spoken around here as "Pah-sta" while disasta would be "Dis-ass-ta."
And while I realize some believe the British interpretation should have precedence, I am, of course, from NEW England, if that matters.

Ah, I see. In that case both here end in ass-ta.

My limerick is in to Jerry.
Top it if you Cannes.

quote:

Ah, I see. In that case both here end in ass-ta.

And that used to be the case here in the US. But almost no one who has any pretensions of culture pronounces it that way anymore - since they all have adopted the Italian "a".

We used to just call it macaroni, or spaghetti.

I call it "Chef Boy-ar-dee"

Actually, my wife, who is of Italian descent, pronounces it "basta," but it comes out like a cross between the "p" and "b." Sorry I can't write it using the proper symbols.

quote:

Ah, I see. In that case both here end in ass-ta.

I am surprised. I would have thought the English would say "pah-sta."

As for "Chef Boy-ar-dee"...When my kids were growing up I was either in my doctoral program or in academia, so I often took the easy way out for lunches or sometimes even dinners. One night my very sweet 4-year-old said, "Mom, you make the best Spaghetti-Os!" That did a lot for my guilt, though I had to chuckle.

quote:

As for "Chef Boy-ar-dee"...When my kids were growing up . . . . I often took the easy way out

The Chef performed more mealtime miracles for my mother than are listed in the Bible.