Nice easy one for blue rhymes and there won't be any arguments about how to pronounce it either.

If up to the Snowy you're truckin'
Make sure that you stop off at Buchan
And check out the Caves
'Bout which everyone raves,
And many a head'll be duckin'.

Send me your Limericks by PM now.

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
Nice easy one for blue rhymes and there won't be any arguments about how to pronounce it either.

Depends on which "Buchan" you're talking about! If you mean the district in Scotland, then the correct pronunciation is with the Scottish "ch" as in "loch" (although it's usually pronounced with a "k" sound by those who can't manage the Scottish "ch"). I wasn't aware of the Australian town until I looked it up, but I presume that always has the "k" sound.

The Scottish pronunciation is a bit hard to rhyme with though...

I think my sample limerick made it pretty clear which fuckin' Buchan we're talkin' 'bout.

Is the "an" at the end of the town name actually pronounced as "in", or is that poetic licence?

I suppose Kiwis might pronounce it "in" anyway ...

quote:

Is the "an" at the end of the town name actually pronounced as "in", or is that poetic licence?

I think you folks well-grounded in the technicalities of pronunciation call it a "schwa", but I'm not too sure about that. Anyway the best way I can explain it is that the local "Buchan idiot" is a perfect rhyme for the local "fuckin' idiot", which is the very reason I chose it. I have never heard it pronounced any other way, and I've stayed there overnight and I've visited its famous caves on a few occasions.

By the way I've just received my first entry from myself, and I reckon it's right up there with my Brighton and Lytham limericks so it will take a bloody good limerick to beat it.

I think the issue here is not the pronunciation of "Buchan" itself but the way that the colloquial "-in'" suffix is pronounced. In my dialect it's pronounced with a clear "i" and not a schwa, so your example wouldn't be a perfect rhyme. In fact I'm struggling to think of *any* word in my dialect that would be a perfect rhyme for the given pronunciation of "Buchan".

But I'm prepared to take liberties for the purpose of the game...

What Guy wrote. The "an" ending is a schwa; the "in" ending is pronouced as written. Indeed, I can think of no simple rhymes for Buchan - even if the "in" ending were acceptable.

Mind you, a challenge is what it's all about in this game.

Let me remind this august group: There are no Pulitzer or Nobel Prizes or Academy Awards given for this winner. So...please feel free to take a little poetic license and do as you please. If it's fun (and how can it not be when it rhymes with "fuckin'!), I will vote for it!

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Let me remind this august group: There are no Pulitzer or Nobel Prizes or Academy Awards given for this winner.

Well no, but the aim is to win the votes of the other players, and some of those may well be influenced by how well the limerick rhymes or scans. I myself have a strong preference for those that rhyme and scan properly, which is why I didn't vote for Greg's last time even though I thought it was the funniest.

Surely we're allowed to judge by "technical merit" as well as "artistic impression"?

You know I wish people would stop obsessing about this stuff.

It's only a game.

If limericks don't have to rhyme
I'd write plenty if I had the inclination
For lines two and three
Are easy you know
But line five's where my muse starts to ring.

quote:

You know I wish people would stop obsessing about this stuff.
It's only a game.

Amen.

I am so busy at work, and that will last until April 4th, but I will come up with one. It probably will stink and get no votes (like my last one, which, BTW, I liked!), but I'll give it a try!

3 entries so far - keep 'em coming.

Sorry but I really didn't think about how others might pronounce this. We Aussies are pretty lazy with our pronunciation and when we say "fucking", whether used as the present participle of the verb or as an adjective we say it with a "schwa" as if it were written as fuck'n. And that's exactly how we pronounce Buchan. We get a lot of US and UK TV and movies over here and our lazy way of saying that form of the F-word seems to be pretty universal to me.

That being said I do note that it is actually quite challenging, given that my Rhyming Dictionary doesn't even list it. I guess I should have given it a bit more thought.

Oh well - what's done is done and if nothing else the entries will be fun to read.

No Greg, you shouldn't. It's absolutely fine.

Here's a thought.

Why don't we all just write our limericks with whatever rhyme and whatever metre we think is OK and then let the voting sort out if we have done a good job or not.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
No Greg, you shouldn't. It's absolutely fine.

Here's a thought.

Why don't we all just write our limericks with whatever rhyme and whatever metre we think is OK and then let the voting sort out if we have done a good job or not.

I think it's only right that those who choose a place should tell us its local pronunciation. Otherwise there might be major problems with the likes of "Belvoir", "Wrotham" and "Bicester".

Indeed, but the finer niceties of whether the expletive is pronounced

/'fʊkɪn/
/'fʊkɪng/
/'fʊkən/
/'fʊkəng/ (Can't imagine anyone doing this one)
/'fʊkn/
/'fʊkng/
/'fʌkɪn/
/'fʌkɪng/
/'fʌkən/
/'fʌkəng/
/'fʌkn/
/'fʌkng/

or any other variation in your own regional accent are too subtle to be of any great concern in what was originally meant to be a rather light-hearted antidote to the strictures of the OEDILF requirements.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
I think it's only right that those who choose a place should tell us its local pronunciation. Otherwise there might be major problems with the likes of "Belvoir", "Wrotham" and "Bicester".

Reminds me of the old one:

There was a young lady of Woosester
Who usest to crow like a roosester;
She usest to climb
Two trees at a time
But her sisester usest to boosest her.

Incidentally, Bob, how do you manage to get IPA symbols on the screen? (And shouldn't you have used the symbol looking like an "n" with a curly tail to represent the "-ng" sound?)

I either use /windows/accessories/systemtools/charactermap/ to cut and paste from a font that has them or I find a word that has the sound I want using an online dictionary that shows phonetics and cut and paste from there.

I sometimes use http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

I'm sure there are other ways.

With regard to the difference between /ng/ and /ŋ/, they are technically different sounds - the former lacking the nasal aspects of the latter but I could have used either or possibly both to represent the multiple variations in how this word may be pronounced. It would have doubled the length of the list though and I though I'd done quite enough /'fʊkn/ about for one post.

(PS I've also heard it, with all the other variations in the second syllable, as /'fu:k/) It's a very flexible little word.

She frowned and called him Mr.
Because in sport he Kr.
And so in spite
That very night
This Mr. Kr. Sr.

– Anonymous

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
With regard to the difference between /ng/ and /ŋ/, they are technically different sounds - the former lacking the nasal aspects of the latter

Both /n/ and /ŋ/ are nasals - the former is an alveolar nasal, the latter a velar nasal.
I've never heard the consonant cluster /ng/ - are you sure you don't mean /ŋg/ (as in "finger")? /ng/ would be quite hard to articulate, as the usually alveolar consonant /n/ naturally becomes assimilated to the velar /g/ in such cases.

There are certainly some dialects of English (mainly in the Midlands?) where it's normal to pronounce a final -ng as /ŋg/, with the /g/ clearly articulated. But in RP it's always just /ŋ/ and I'd guess that's probably the case for the vast majority of English-speakers.

For the record I'd normally pronounce the word in question as /'fʌkɪŋ/ or sometimes /'fʌkɪn/.

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:


Both /n/ and /ŋ/ are nasals - the former is an alveolar nasal, the latter a velar nasal.
I've never heard the consonant cluster /ng/ - are you sure you don't mean /ŋg/ (as in "finger")? .

You are of course quite right.

These discussions are quite interesting but a few more limericks would be good. I've still only received 3.

I'll get on it straight away.
Sorry for hijacking the game.

I am sorry, Greg. I have been just crushingly busy at work and haven't had a chance. Bob, your friend will arrive tomorrow, and I am afraid I won't be much of a hostess because of my workload. Why is it that everything always comes at once?

I'll get on it, though, Greg.

We're getting there. I've got 6 now. A few more from a few more and we'll be just about ready for a vote.

I'll get Shu to write one. He has been reciting some good ones around the house.

7 limericks from 7 contestants so far. I will wait until I get that one from Shu and then post the Poll, so we can get on with a new game with a much "easier" rhyme??

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
7 limericks from 7 contestants so far.

I sent 2 limericks, so does your total include one person who sent none?

Sorry make that 7 from 6 contestants

Any chance of a Buchan vote soon?

Sure - looks that one from Shu isn't going to come, so I'll post a Poll within the next 24 hours.

The Poll has been posted.