Let's help the US deploy its missile batteries to GUAM.
Send your entires to me ASAP by PM and, if I can remember, I'll post them some day.

It's been three whole hourse and no entries yet.

And I can't make a correction to this until someone else posts.

Why?

Instead of having three symbols above "Reply" I now only have two. The "edit" one is missing.

UPDATE:
As soon as I posted that last sentence, the missing symbol appeared.

I think some times the forum software doesn't properly identify members. Several times I've found my admin links are missing when I arrive. I'll browse through a couple of pages, and if that doesn't work log out then in again. That's always fixed it (so far).

I wanted to correct a typo in the second post but could not because the symbol was missing. After I replied to BobHale, the missing symbol popped back up on all the previous posts where it was missing.

Let me know if it keeps happening, Proof, and we'll contact the software people.

I have sent one. It stinks. I shall correct myself: I have scent one.

I'll get one to you tomorrow.

Mine is in!

I am at a loss on this one. I'll keep trying on future ones, and maybe I'll get better with practice.

My poetic knowledge is at the level of some young high-school kid doing it for the first time.

I am excited to see the entries.

Tom, just write something, even if it's bad. Sleep on it, then revise. Sleep on it again, then revise. By then you'll thought of something else entirely, and will start all over. Yeah, that's how I do it.

Now to go revise one I've already sent...

Can someone British tell me what the rhyme is please. Not dissing the Americans but rhymezone tells me it rhymes wit balm, bomb and bam - none of which rhyme with each other to a Brit.

Fee Jee

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
Fee Jee

Curiously unhelpful.

quote:

Can someone British tell me what the rhyme is please. Not dissing the Americans but rhymezone tells me it rhymes wit balm, bomb and bam - none of which rhyme with each other to a Brit.

Well I'm not a Brit, but at least we spell English the same as you guys, and to an Aussie like me it doesn't rhyme with any of those - to us it rhymes with "glum".

AFAIK, it doesn't rhyme perfectly with anything else. A near-rhyme is the best we can hope for, regardless of our dialect, I'm afraid. Oh, wait: try "Suriname!" Yeah, it rhymes with Suriname! Oh, and Viet Nam too, assuming you use a short "a." Damn, now I've gotta go write another one!

See, Tom, this is how it works!

I say Gwahm, but I've heard gum, gwasm, and as Geeoff says, Vietnam. Only points taken off if you do pronounce it as Fee Jee.

quote:

but I've heard gum

For the record, for me it is not pronounced "gum", but it does rhyme with gum.

For me in a rhyming sense

"Guam" is to "gum" as "quick" is to "kick".

I've never used it, but I'm pretty sure I've heard it pronounced "Gwahm". Wikipedia bears me out; they give it in IPA as /ˈɡwɑːm/.

I tried to think of words that rhymed with the "wahm" part of Guam. I could only think of one (wigwam). On further reflection I assume "mom" and "tom" rhyme okay with the the "om" part. (and likewise perhaps "Mum" with Gwuhm" down under.)

Would you consider "calm" or "psalm" as non-rhyming? They are "near-rhymes" if that is an appropriate term. If you read calm in a rhyme would you just read it to yourself as though the "L" were silent?

Thanks for tolerating my rhyming-101 questions, all.

I've not placed any restrictions on rhyme (other than feejee).

If you forget how to rhyme Guam, you may be suffering from indonesia.

I'm sure I've done this before but I can't take the trouble to search.

In my version of English (i.e the correct one ) these are sets of rhyming words

1.
am bam blam cram clam dam damn dram ham jam lamb mam Viet-Nam pram ram Sam wham

2.
aplomb bomb from mom om pom Tom

3
arm balm calm charm farm harm ma'am palm psalm qualm

And those sets DO NOT RHYME with each other.

I am aware that, especially in set three, for Americans some of these rhymes don't work at all.

I'll try to get a Guam limerick in today using an entirely arbitrarily chosen rhyme.

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

Hey Bob,

I know since Stella (from NZ) stopped contributing I'm the only Antipodean contributor these days, but you could have at least made me feel part of the family by adding a 4th set of rhymes.

Actually I probably shouldn't have even mentioned Stella because the New Zealand accent is more different to the Aussie accent than ours is from either American or British accents, and Stella would have probably given us a 5th set of rhymes for Guam.

Where is Stella? Any chance she might be coaxed into returning? Except for Kalleh and Beethree5, the women have disappeared.

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
Hey Bob,

I know since Stella (from NZ) stopped contributing I'm the only Antipodean contributor these days, but you could have at least made me feel part of the family by adding a 4th set of rhymes.

Actually I probably shouldn't have even mentioned Stella because the New Zealand accent is more different to the Aussie accent than ours is from either American or British accents, and Stella would have probably given us a 5th set of rhymes for Guam.

My apologies Greg. It was inadvertant. I don't know enough of Aus and NZ pronunciation to make meaningful suggestions.

Anyway, I shall try not to leave you out next time.

quote:

I know since Stella (from NZ) stopped contributing

I'll PM Stella. I miss her. She visited Chicago once and brought me some great word related bookmarks. I love them and still use them.

As for the rhymes, I wish all of you who obsess over the perfect rhyme (most of the above work for me; not "damn" and "Guam", of course, but most) would focus more on your meter. I find meter problems the biggest with these. A near-rhyme I will tolerate, but if it sounds all "lumpy" (Proof's great word for poor meter), I just can't accept it. I have sometimes been close to being forced to select my own because of meter, but I've not done so yet.

Proof's pronunciation above for Guam is perfect.

Of course. But as my metre is perfect already, I can concentrate on the rhyme.

Just call me Mr Modesty.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Of course. But as my metre is perfect already...

Not only that, but you spell "metre" properly, unlike us Webster-influenced ninnies! Bad enough that we rebelled against the King, but also against the King's English, tossing French spellings, despite France's being our ally in that squabble!

Proof, how many entries have you?

At least four. I'll wait till the weekend to post so you all have a chance to send in late entries.

Saturday night, as I was about to begin posting the limericks, my hard drive began screeching like something in a horror movie, followed by the blue screen of death. So yesterday was spent trying get it fixed, which didn't work, and then buying another computer, setting it up and trying to learn Windows 8. I had a lot of trouble getting back to this site since using "Wordcraft" in the search doesn't come close to this one until page four.

I'll try to post Guam ASAP but I still have to decipher the new operating system Windows has constructed to flabbergast as many people as possible.

On a positive note, the old hard drive contains a magnet so powerful you can hang someone on a battleship's side using it, and the power supply can be converted easily into a battery charger. Not that these helpful hints do you any good getting the limericks posted, but it might be fun to know how you can keel haul Bill Gates while charging the battery on your stun gun.

I'm still getting this thing set up and I don't have a word processor yet installed, so I can't post the lims until I do. Probably not until tomorrow some time.

quote:

I don't have a word processor

Why would you need a word processor? Doesn't Windows 8 contain a text editor such as Notepad or a word processor like Wordpad any more if you want to compose it offline?

quote:

Why would you need a word processor? Doesn't Windows 8 contain a text editor such as Notepad or a word processor like Wordpad any more if you want to compose it offline?

I had no idea there were so many new features with Windows 8 and would never have considered using the older version of Notepad for anything.

I have a program called Pagemaker by Adobe which is used to make books and I have every limerick I've written and all entered from this site in my contests saved on it. Unfortunately, I haven't loaded it yet since my wife's Office took so long to download last night. So I'm saving this contest on Word until Pagemaker is running.

I am going to post the contest on Thursday since Geoff has raised a question for me that I am waiting for his reply. I want to make sure things are fair (or as fair as they can be).

Greg also raised the issue of pronunciation of the name. However you rhyme it is fine with me as long as you don't try to make it go with "Chapaquidick" or something similar.

There once was a fellow of Guam
Who wanted to move to Chapaquidick
But he found it so hard
To come up with a rhyme
He had to settle for something similar.

Does that work for you?

quote:

Greg also raised the issue of pronunciation of the name.

Huh? That was discussed at length earlier in the thread. See https://wordcraft.infopop.cc/ev...720043266#7720043266

I raised a question? PM me - I don't remember. Or did it have to do with my editing my submission? It says, "edited beneath it.

My computer refuses to load anything. I'm using an ultra modern German OS, Windows nein.

I think I saw Bob's at oEDILF.

Greg didn't raise a question. He merely brought it to my attention we had discussed the PG of Guam some time ago in another thread. Geoff doesn't recall his question so I'll ignore what he asked me to do.

Posting tomorrow, once I recover from being unable to load my favorite software on Windows 8. Now I've lost all my limericks since Windows won't open the files.