1: Toulouse is a city in France
Where they sew many jackets and pants
But the people refuse
(Though they've nothing to lose)
To wear them to sing or to dance.

2: I'll visit the city, Toulouse
(It's called the "pink city" - those
views!)
Across the Atlantic,
For quite the romantic
Great rendezvous, plenty of screws!

3: Forget tracks with obstructed views
Or Bookies with very long queues.
While punting around
The thing that I've found
Is the best place to win is Toulouse.

But reports I read in the news
Said Bookies are turning the screws
Down so very tightly
That wrongly or rightly
There's no way to win in Toulouse!

4: A man who lived down in Toulouse
Said, “A woman is of little use”
“And I’m also not gay
So it’s with pride I say
Meet the love of my life - she’s a moose”

5: At a down-market dive in Toulouse
Said a gourmand, “This paté’s not goose!
The éclair is just fair
But I really despair
To find no trace of moose in the mousse.

6: Louis XIV and XVI of France
Tried their wives' private lives to
enhance
As they ditched the two Lous
In two loos in Toulouse
To avoid being looked at askance

7: A tart is not a Toulouse Goose
With lips most like a big mouthed moose
If you care to dine
Please serve with red wine
This fatty goose that's from Toulouse


Oops, I missed one! Now they're all there! Vote away!

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

Pretty sure the ) in No. 2 is meant to come after "pink city" ... not after views.

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
Pretty sure the ) in No. 2 is meant to come after "pink city" ... not after views.

That's how the writer punctuated it, but I surely see your point!

All things considered I prefer three, even if it is two...

...and 3a just barely noses out 3b, if they're meant to be not two verses but two separate limericks.

Think I will go with 3A, too.

I'll go for 3

Personally, my fave is Hab's original in the other thread, namely:

L.A. and New England: two views
It gets harder and harder to choose.
There's a very good chance
One will voyage to France
Because somebody's going Toulouse.

But if forced to vote for one of those here, I will give my vote to 2.

I doubt #3 is assailable at this point, but I won't call it yet. I'll give it another day.

If I had a vote I'd take #6. It reads aloud superbly!

I notice that there are two distinct sets of offerings - one with -louse rhyming with -LOSE and the other with -LOOSE. Whatever that means.

Well, I'll out myself and #2 was mine - the parenthesis was meant to be where it is, though the line "those views" should have been in the second line. I don't think it would have made sense had the parenthesis been after city as the whole statement was parenthetical, describing that fine city.

It is called the pink city. Originally when we did these, we attempted to describe the city in the limerick. I still do it from time to time, if possible.

This one was hard for me as some didn't have Toulouse in the right place and in others the meter didn't work that well for me. I guess I'll choose #3, too, though the first line in the first limerick gave me meter-itis.

The two with -oose rhyme are mine. I was genuinely surprised when I saw all the others with the -ooze rhyme because my whole life I have pronounced it -oose. I guess I have been wrong all this time.

Hi All but especially Kalleh,

I am more affected by rhyme-itis, but I totally get your point, I had trouble too the first time I read it as:

with ob-STRUCT-ed VIEWS, as one probably should but if you push yourself to read it as
with OB-struct-ed VIEWS, it works.

As for the closing parenthesis, I mistakenly read it as:

(It's called the "pink city") - those views across the Atlantic,

which other punctuation should have made sure I did not read it that way, but sometimes (in fact often) your mind reads what it expects to read, like when words are wrongly duplicated but placed so that one is at the end of one line and the other the beginning of the next, you read straight past it and usually don't even see the repeat.

The problem with 6 is that Toulouse is meant to be the A-rhyme (as Kalleh indirectly pointed out), but more importantly two Lous and Toulouse, are homonyms, not rhymes! But it's a nice limerick otherwise and as Kalleh suggested re hers, it does fit the location which is always a big plus and one of the main reasons I voted for 2.

“homonyms, not rhymes”. Now _that’s_ a nice point.

And yet I’ve always considered
A tutor who tooted a flute
Tried to tutor two Tudors to toot.
Said the two to the tutor,
“Is it harder to toot
Or to tutor two Tudors to toot?”
to be one of the cleverer examples of the genre.

Is there such a thing as an “identity rhyme” (in the mathematical sense)?

Are we being too demanding of ourselves?

Edit: fixed typo

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

I've not come across that one before, but what a brilliant piece of writing. I'm guessing, in fact I read it that way the 1st 3 times, that line 4 starts with "Is it ..."

It also surprises me how it works so perfectly rhythmically, yet is somewhat confusing because I can't decide if the or that ends line 3 should really be the beginning of line 4, or if the Or that starts line 5 should really be the end of line 4. As it is written above, lines 2 and 5 are identical except for the extra Or at the front, suggesting it really does belong to the end of line 4. That would give lines 3 & 4 7 syllables each which you don't see every often (usually it's 5 or 6), and then to top it all off line 1 has one less syllable that line 2. And yet I am certain Kalleh would say it is metrically perfect. Confusing as it is on so many levels, I absolutely love it. I have tried 10 times to read it now and every time lines 1 and 2 roll off my tongue as smoothly as silk, but by the time I get to line 5, virtually identical to line 2, I don't think it has come out right once yet. Who was it attributed to, do you know?

I've always thought of the rhythm in musical terms. It's in 6/8 time, with a pickup note or two at the beginning and/or the end of many lines. The poem reads
6-1-2-3-4-5-6-1(-2-3-4-)
5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6-1(-2-3-4-5)
6-1-2-3-4
5-6-1-2-3-4
5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6-1(-2-3-4-5)

But the 2s,3s,4s,5s, and 6s are "ambidextrous;" it's not clear whether they belong with the previous line or the next line, and often-but-not-always they are silent (but still an important part of the rhythmic flow). That ambiguity is what Greg is pointing out.

None of which clears up the imperfection of the hiccup in line 4 "Is it" that has to be double-time (sixteenth notes {semiquavers}, if you will) to make the rest work.

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

I think I've said much of that before. Forgive me if I repeat myself.

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
Hi All but especially Kalleh,

I am more affected by rhyme-itis, but I totally get your point, I had trouble too the first time I read it as:

with ob-STRUCT-ed VIEWS, as one probably should but if you push yourself to read it as
with OB-struct-ed VIEWS, it works.

Interestingly OBSTRUCTED, like many other words, usually has first syllable stress in the UK but second syllable stress in the U.S. I'll come up with more examples when I have time. Right now I'm packing to return to Xianyyang. My teaching starts again tomorrow.

As I mentioned above, Hab, your #6 seemed really rhythmic, thus my liking it. Your #1 didn't sing so sweetly to me.

#3, the winnah, was Greg. Good going!
4 and 5 were Bob's.
As for Kalleh's wanting screws in #2, you Do know that "vice" in French means "screw - the hardware type, right?
#7 was a last-ditch effort by a terribly beleaguered sattva who, despite family issues, tossed one in. Thanks!

Now, what's become of Bethree5??? Is she ill again? Does anyone know?

Take it away, Greg! Just don't take us to Tittybong or Wankey!

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
Hi All but especially Kalleh,

I am more affected by rhyme-itis, but I totally get your point, I had trouble too the first time I read it as:

with ob-STRUCT-ed VIEWS, as one probably should but if you push yourself to read it as
with OB-struct-ed VIEWS, it works.

Now that you all know the 2-verser limerick was mine, what I really meant when I wrote "I had trouble too the first time I read it" is "I had trouble too when writing it"

Don't worry Geoff, I have learned my lesson, I will try to come up with an easy one this time.

Typing w/left pointer. Going to ortho later to find out why rt wrist out of commish-- for 2nd time in 2wks. (Ulnar side).

My fave is Number Four!

There once was a man named Toulouse
With talent and high-platform shoes
Though he was so short
The gals paid him court
To get their figures in the news.

I wouldn't even attempt it, but consider the challenge: writing a limerick using only keyboard letters reached by the left hand!

I'm glad to hear it's ONLY your hand that doesn't work! Not that that's not bad enough, but I'm happy to know you're still with us!

Hab, I've never learned to type "properly," so I still hunt and peck. That's why I never learned to play the clarinet (No klezmer for me!) or the pennywhistle. Hmmmmm.... I wonder why the "shift" key is on both sides of the keyboard, just like real typewriters?

quote:

...I wonder why the "shift" key is on both sides of the keyboard, just like real typewriters?

So you can type an upper-case letter regardless of which hand is typing the letter itself? That'd be my guess.

dg: GOUT.

In splint. Can't drive or work [or comb hair or or or]. The good news: pain relieved by brace contraption.

At least, it's good to have a name for it. And it's disruptive to be sure, but not threatening.

I didn't even know that you can get gout in your hands but as a long time sufferer with it in my feet and ankles I know just how painful it can be. Here's hoping that it's only a brief attack and you recover quickly.

My first thought was Carpal Tunnel. Gout is painful!!! Glad you are getting some relief with the brace.

On another note, I know I can't write limericks, but just so you know, there is a Toulouse goose. I found that out when looking up info about Toulouse. I thought of a too loose goose as not being a "tart" from British slang that I have picked up from British comedies. The goose part I meant here was being silly. So, I meant it as a sexually loose and silly woman. The big mouthed moose referred (in not a good way), as someone too loose with their words, spreading rumors and such. I found that certain geese, like the Toulouse goose, is often served with a fine red wine, and that it is a very fatty bird. So, even if the flow was pretty bad, I learned something in the process about wine, geese, and Toulouse. LOL This limerick probably made no sense to most people. I am not sure it did to me, either!

You educated me considerably, so it was definitely NOT a waste of time! Many thanks!

I have posted a new game for the little Dandenong Ranges' village known as Kallista.

Oh, I love the village name, Greg.

Hab, that limerick you posted (way up above about tooting) is one that Shu often recites to me, along with many other hilarious ones. One of my favorites is:

To his bride said the lynx-eyed detective,
"Could it be that my eyesight's defective?
Has your east tit the least bit
The best of the west tit?
Or is it a trick of perspective?"

Hab, you are right. We are too hard on ourselves. I, for one, am going to try to lighten up.