Moved from the previous limerick game thread.

PMs to Richard, please!

Moved Reply:

Oh dear - and I've never even been within 2000 miles of Coober Pedy.

OK. There's a newish development near to Horsham which has few merits other than that of its name's being easily rhymeable. Roffey (stress on the first syllable) has almost nothing of interest or notoriety that I can find, so your easy-to-rhyme limericks will be judged in more than usual measure on their relevance to this unfortunate place.

Full ahead both.

Just to let everyone know: I will be in Spain fro a week from Friday, so I'll not be able to attend to this until I get back. So don't be concerned if you don't get a reply from me.

One submission is in already, so it's looking promising.

Richard, is it pronounced RAH-fee? That's my inclination.

Americans would thus pronounce it, since they tend not to use the short "o" sound that we use in such words as "dog". It rhymes with "coffee" - which, to my ears, Americans call "cahfee". It also rhymes with "toffee" - but I suspect that word is unknown in the USA, where they refer to the confectionary as "taffee".

Simple solution. Just rhyme it with coffee (or with anything that you think rhymes with coffee), however you happen to pronounce that! Then the chances are that your rhymes will work everywhere.

Having lived near NYC for decades, my once-upstate accent ("koh-fee") is getting closer to the awful city "KOwah-fee". I have a neighbor, Chicago native, who says "kah-fee" like you, Kalleh.

Richard: in Wiki, I noticed that until the early 1900's the name of the village was spelled "Roughey." Are "Roughey" and "Roffey" pronounced the same in the UK? (For me, the former would be "ruh-ffey")

Ah the famous "ough" combination!

It would be quite possible for "Roughy" to be pronounced as "Ruff-ee", "Roff-ee" or maybe even "Row-fee". Think of "rough", "cough" or plough.

But certainly it's promounced to rhyme with "coffee" now.

Just to let everyone know: I'll be away for a week from tomorrow, so the results will have to wait until I get back. Four in so far.

quote:

Ah the famous "ough" combination!

From a piece of verse I wrote called "Pronunciation" from my book Casting Nasturtiums, which has still failed to grab sufficient interest from any of you to make you actually purchase a copy:

With off in cough
It’s tough enough
But with no thought for you,
It’s oh in though
And ow in bough
And still we aren’t yet through.

And also from that book:

Ought It Not Be?

If taught is ‘did teach’
Ought not “blaught” be ‘did bleach’?
If caught is ‘did catch’
Ought not “snaught” be ‘did snatch’?
If fought is ‘did fight’
Ought not “lought” be ‘did light’?
If brought is ‘did bring’
Ought not “strought” be ‘did string’?
If bought is ‘did buy’
Ought not “gought” be ‘did guy’?
If sought is ‘did seek’
Ought not “rought” be ‘did reek’?
If thought is ‘did think’
Ought not “wought” be ‘did wink’?
But ought it not be
That the “~ought” ought not be?

© Copyright Greg Shalless, 2009

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Greg S,

There are, of course, many poems that use the absurdity of English spelling for their themes. One of the best is "The Chaos" by G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946 - http://www.mipmip.org/tidbits/pronunciation.shtml

And there's another selection here: http://www.spellingsociety.org.../media/poems.php#top

Mine's in.

I'm now back, after a sunny week away, made less enjoyable by the complete absence of decent beer

I'll give it another day and then set up a poll (if I can work the system).

I have sent in the two best ones. Stop the contest!

Nice work Proof, but you may have to vote for one of your own to make it a winner, because chances are if they're both that good, they'll pull one vote each, and someone else with only one entry will knock you off with 2 votes. If you then decide to vote for your own, the person with 2 will vote for theirs and you'll be done again.

I can't possibly win this time, because none of you Americans will have that faintest idea what it is about, even if you try to do some Google research on it.

quote:

I can't possibly win this time, because none of you Americans will have that faintest idea what it is about, even if you try to do some Google research on it.

Hmmm ... I think I know which is yours, then, Greg.

Jeb Raltar, while visiting Roffey,
Told a miss he would buy her some coffee.
"Well, if you insist
But if I'm to be kissed
I require that you pay me a "paw fee."

quote:

Hmmm ... I think I know which is yours, then, Greg

At first I thought how could you, only Richard knows the limericks, and then it struck me, ah the Poll must have been posted. Just thought I'd mention this in case someone else was like me, waiting for a notification via this thread that the Poll was posted.

Uh, ditto

quote:

I can't possibly win this time, because none of you Americans will have that faintest idea what it is about, even if you try to do some Google research on it.

For the record, I believe (though I've not done a study on this) that more non-Americans have won in the limerick game than Americans. So you might be surprised.

Apologies, I am not familiar with setting up polls and, when I realsied that I hadn't entitled my poll posting, I tried to edit it. However, editing would have cleared the votes already posted, so I left it as it was.

In fact, the postings list does appear to show which are polls by means of a small mark in the insignia.

I think people might sometimes only look at the last posting in the forum and therefore miss one posted earlier. In some extreme cases the poll or thread could slip some distance down the page. Votes cast don't count as new postings, so it's often a good idea to make an additional post there every now and then to bump the topic back up the forum list.

ISTR this was a problem a few years ago before we created the 'Word Games' forum to hold the high-traffic game threads. Ironically, the word games are now somewhat out of favour with most of us and several previously busy threads haven't had a post in months.

A new game has been posted.