Werribee is a city about half-way between where I lived most of my life, Melbourne, and where I now live, Geelong. It is famous for amongst other things Werribee Mansion a 60 room building in the Italianate style, built in 1877. The grounds are used to host many events, including several of an equestrian nature. Werribee also has a large open range zoo. Of much less status is the fact that it is home to the main sewerage treatment plant for the city of Melbourne, and one can often tell when one is nearing Werribee by the odour.

The first and third syllables are stressed, so it's nice and easy to rhyme as you only have to rhyme the last one, but for those of you wanting to rhyme all three it rhymes with "terribly".

Send me your limericks by PM, and good luck.

One very good limerick received so far. More please.

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it rhymes with "terribly".

I think not.

Well what the hell do you think it rhymes with then?

Where's the "L?"

I'll have to think on this, but I'll get you one!

Well to my way of thinking -bly rhymes with -bee in the same way as flea rhymes with fee, and plea rhymes with pea.

If there is any contention about the terribly rhyme it could only be with the middle syllable, where it is pronounced as a schwa.

In other words Werribee is pronounced Wear-uh-bee by all the locals and I pronounce terribly as Tear-uh-blee, so the rhyme is perfect from my perspective.

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In other words Werribee is pronounced Wear-uh-bee by all the locals and I pronounce terribly as Tear-uh-blee, so the rhyme is perfect from my perspective.

WerriBEE
TerriBLEE

It would have to be WerriBLEE for it to rhyme for me.

OK Proof, I take your point, for it to be an absolutely perfect rhyme that would be correct, but since we are only required to rhyme the last syllable anyway, the fact that the 2 preceding syllables happen to rhyme as well (in the case of Werribee and terribly) is surely just a nice bonus. Clearly then, you would also argue that in the Yackandandah game, Jacaranda didn't rhyme with it - the tree would have to be a Jacandanda for you to think it rhymed.

Lost count of the number of times I've said this in the past but...


a feminine or a dactylic proper rhyme (as opposed to a slant rhyme or an eye rhyme or any other type of rhyme) has the following properties

the final stressed syllable (penultimate for feminine, antepenultimate for dactylic) rhymes, the subsequent unstressed syllables are identical (NOT simply rhyming)

so Werribee, terribly do not "rhyme" because of the "l" as the final two syllables are unstressed. Now if the two words were pronounced werriBEE and terriBLEE that would be a masculine rhyme and would be OK. But they ain't pronounced that way. Are they?

With that said let's keep in mind that this is our game and the rules can be whatever we choose them to be. If Greg says that they rhyme then for the duration of this game then they rhyme. His game, his rules. And so my entry rhymes by his rules but not quite by mine.

Thanks for the clarification Bob. I would think that the final syllable is definitely the stressed syllable in WerriBEE, but it is perhaps a bit of a stretch to suggest that it also is in terribly, but not too much of a stretch for lazy Aussie speakers like me. Pity I chose that word as my method of demonstrating how Werribee is pronounced. Perhaps I should have said it rhymes with "snare a bee".

I had assumed that the stress was on the first syllable - as is the stress for "terribly" for me. Maybe it's a case of "back to the old drawing board".

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"snare a bee".

Something I would never attempt

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I had assumed that the stress was on the first syllable - as is the stress for "terribly" for me.

I would have thought that the first and third syllables were both stressed, but unfortunately the technical details of matters such as this, is something I have never really taken the time to educate myself properly about. So I am happy to defer to my more erudite colleagues such as yourself, Bob, Proof and Kalleh.

Thankfully my lack of accurate knowledge in these matters doesn't stop me writing the occasional reasonably good limerick.

Kalleh, erudite about limericks? No siree! I was just asking about the "l" in "terribly" vs. no "l" in Werribee.

It seems to me that "WERR-i-bee" is easier to rhyme than "werr-i-BEE" so I'm doing that, based on this link.. So be it if I don't win.

To my mind it rhymes with the last words of L4/5 of this wonderful old song:

Landlord fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over
Landlord fill the flowing bowl until it doth run over
For tonight we'll merry merry be, for tonight we'll merry merry be,
For tonight we'll merry merry be -
Tomorrow we'll be sober.

I sent mine in, and I so enjoyed writing it!

Greetings from Canada!

I'll try to log in occasionally but it's a question of borrowing computer time...

You didn't actually mean the stress is on the last syllaBLE, did you Greg? I gathered when you rhyme it with 'terribly', you're mainly talking stress, so it's a dactyl. Here's a link to an Aussie male pronouncing Werribee Plain, does he say it as you would?

Look I am not very good on the technicalities of this stuff, so I will try to explain its pronunciation another way.

If the third last letter was a T rather than a B, then a perfect rhyme for "in Werritee" would by my reckoning be "sincerity". And in fact from my less technical perspective, "sincerity" is a good enough rhyme for Werribee to be legitimate for this game. I hope that helps.

By the way I have 5 limericks from 4 contestants, so far. I reckon I need a few more before we can put them to a vote.

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O
By the way I have 5 limericks from 4 contestants, so far. I reckon I need a few more before we can put them to a vote.

Yeah but quality over quantity and mine was amazing.

Well it is beginning to like we're going to have to make do with just the 5 "quality" limericks.

got free time now: promise I'll get 1 in 2day

Didn't seem like I was going to get any more entries so I have posted the Poll, so we can get on with an easier game soon.