We’ve had an old friend staying with us recently and I’m making the next limerick destination his hometown – Dublin.

Send me your little beauties*, cuties.

* = Aussie for something or someone great.

(Alternatively: send me your corkers, porkers)

I'll soon send you my tale, frail.

quote:

Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not as bad as Iceland.

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-84)

Heh, heh, arnie!

The only diff between Ireland and Iceland is one letter and six months.

The Economist (2009)

Two participants in the limerick game so far - the blossoming Asa and the irrepressible proofreader.

So, all you others, send me some ditties, my pretties.

I was curious about Johnson's dogmatic opinions on both Dublin and (particularly) Iceland, and looked him up in Wikipedia. There's no mention in the quite long entry of him ever having visited either Ireland or Iceland. In fact, the only country abroad he is mentioned as having visited was Scotland. However, from his biography, he comes across as the sort of person who held firm opinions on pretty well everything.

Am I jinxing this game? I show up, and everybody else leaves. Sheesh!

Yes, indeed - don't y'all go leaving Asa and proof out in the cold together, you hear me!

.... pack up some crackers, slackers!


PS: It's OK - Richard is out there with them. No need to panic.

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

What's freaky is that I hadn't even announced that I'd sent one in! I'll admit to cheating, though, using dialect to make a rhyme.

I wouldn't call that cheating, Asa - though you might like to add a pronunciation guide if the word is to be pronounced differently from the way we'd expect.

Anyone else gonna join in?

Although it looks easy this may be the hardest word we've ever had to rhyme. I can't find ANY proper rhymes and only two approximate rhymes, with a further two possibles if I stretch it a bit further.
As I'm very busy preparing for the start of term I may have to cry off this round.
If anything occurs to me I'll try again later.

Oh yes. Dublin's a pig to rhyme. Either you have to use near rhymes, such as "troubling" or you have to change the rhyme so that it becomes "troublin'"

But I have had a go.

Even doing that (which I count as legitimate), there are still a VERY limited number of possibilities.

I sent you one. I found this one fun to rhyme.

Even I've managed to produce something approaching a limerick on Dublin. On its way to Stella now.

Great! These are good submissions despite the dearth of rhymes - I knew it wouldn't be easy but then as some wise man said recently

quote:

Where's the fun in doing the easy ones?

24hrs and results will be posted.

Herewith the entries for Dublin:

Proof

My wife caught a kitty in Dublin
And it’s cute personality’s bubblin.
But like clockwork she spews
A new litter that mews
And that increase is now more than troublin.

Very nicely done, proof. Great little story that hangs together well. Good rhyme and metre - I really like L3-4 with the extra internal rhyme. You probably could’ve put an apostrophe on bubblin’ and troublin’ but that’s nitpicking. You’re a master at these.


Asa

A dodgy auld buggar from Dublin,
Whose manner in main is quite troublin',
Is sugar an' spice,
Demeanour most nice,
When the still's got some fresh barley bubblin'.

Asa, you shrinking violet, this is terrific. R & M are perfect and it has lots of Irish flavour. I love “manner in main” – do you have Irish blood in you, I wonder? Anyway, well done.

A Russian whose name was Dublin,
(His family name rhymes with "spleen")
Wrote most tawdry verse,
Went from nasty to worse,
Arriving at last at obscene.

This one, I wasn’t so sure of, which is why I gave you that hint that the reader has to know what you’re on about. You need us to say “Dubleen” but we’re not sure why – it’s not Russian is it? Otherwise, actually, it’s very good.


Richard

A stargazer living in Dublin
Remarked "I am having much trouble in
Seeing well in my observatory
(An ancient old conservatory)
I think I'll just have to get Hubble in".

Hats off to Richard for the most imaginative rhyming in this one. I think it works - we can squish “trouble in” to troubl’in especially since we’re given Dublin in the first line, so we know what’s expected. “Hubble in” was inspired, I thought. I did find L3-4 a bit troublin’ though, Richard, where there seem to be too many syllables for smooth reading.


Arnie

There was a young man of Dublin
Who found Joyce's books troublin'.
Dubliners was scary,
Ulysses was hairy,
and Finnegans Wake was bubblin'.

A very nice literary limerick, arnie. In case it’s helpful, there are a few syllables missing here and there and it’s the anapaestic beat - bah bah BUM bah bah BUM bah bah BUM – that makes limericks easy to read. I hope you don’t mind me getting technical (haha) but I’m hoping you’ll keep on writing limericks for the competition and just a couple of tiny tweaks would have made this a real contender for first prize.


Kalleh

Shane always had ale or some bubblin'
Champage or some wine or, was mumblin'
"I need a martini,
And don't make it teeny!"
So guess where he's from...it is Dublin!

[Scroll over for the answer]

This is lovely, Kalleh, and I’m sure no Irishman would take offence from the implication. I really like the way it bubbles along and the cute little hide-and-seek ending, but I’m going to call you on the rhymes. I don’t mind the homophone tini/teeny so much but bubblin’/mumblin’ isn’t close enough for me, sorry, even though I know this was a b to rhyme.


Asa takes away the prize again with his auld bugger on bubblin’ barley. The Irishness of it, in its character and vocab, won the day and just pipped proof’s poor pregnant pussy at the post.

All yours, Asa.

Awfully sweet of you, Stella, but we just can't keep on handing it to and fro between us! I personally liked Richard's the best.

BTW, my second entry's second line is supposed to give the clue as to the "Doobleen" pronunciation. Oh, welll...

Richard, please choose the next town. If you don't, I'll pick Fucking
http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/austria.asp and give Proofreader a field day!

PS: Yes, there's Irish, Scotch, English, and Swedish. Family names include, Sanders, Latham, Wood, Burgess, Roach, and Peterson.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Asa Lovejoy>,

Nicely done, Asa. You'll have to give up the "Asa doesn't know limericks" mindset, I think.

quote:

I don’t mind the homophone tini/teeny so much but bubblin’/mumblin’ isn’t close enough for me, sorry, even though I know this was a b to rhyme.

Yep, I knew that those rhymes would never be acceptable on OEDILF.

quote:

Very nicely done, proof. Great little story that hangs together well. Good rhyme and metre - I really like L3-4 with the extra internal rhyme. You probably could’ve put an apostrophe on bubblin’ and troublin’ but that’s nitpicking. You’re a master at these.

Well, there's a spare apostrophe in "it's"

quote:

Hats off to Richard for the most imaginative rhyming in this one. I think it works - we can squish “trouble in” to troubl’in especially since we’re given Dublin in the first line, so we know what’s expected. “Hubble in” was inspired, I thought. I did find L3-4 a bit troublin’ though, Richard, where there seem to be too many syllables for smooth reading.

I agree about L3/4. I did try a few other lines but L3 needed to be a continuation of the sentence from L4 and I couldn't think where else a stargazer would have had trouble in seeing.

I did think of "seeing distant galaxies" but then I ran into trouble rhyming "galaxies".

quote:

Richard, please choose the next town. If you don't, I'll pick Fucking

If you really want me to choose, then I'll use your own suggestion as inspiration and choose the little Sussex hamlet of Fulking. http://www.midsussex.gov.uk/page.cfm?pageID=2129

The Shepherd and Dog pub has a picture of a bearded man on its sign who is the exact image of my late stepfather. It caused my late mother quite a shock when she first saw it! http://lh6.ggpht.com/_D_j0DPTI...znP2Jj0/DSCN5287.JPG

Oh, by the way - around here we pronounce Fulking as if it were a monarch who has eaten too much - a full king.

Fulking it is!

As for rhyming "galaxies," how about "Andromeda, and then Pisces?" I think that fits the metre, but I might be wrong.