Here are the limericks entered by those souls brave enough (or stupid enough) to try to find rhymes for Oslo. Not all attempts were equally successful, but nevertheless it's an impressive collection.

Question:
1
There once was a sad-sack from Oslo
who went by the name of Franz Laszlo
hailed he from this region?
ya, shore was Norwegion
cuz even on Prozac he was low.

2
A limericist down in Oz, though
Perturbed that he had to rhyme Oslo,
Worked hard at the task -
"Any good?", you might ask
But the answer quite clearly was no.

3
I once had a colleague in Oslo
Who said to my friend, "Now Roz, though
We're free here in Norway,
We're hardly a whore-way,
So pull up your pants in my Mazdoh!

4
A busty young stripper from Oslo,
Removed all her clothes for applause; though
When lifting her dress,
As the boys screamed yes, yes,
Her frustrating reply always was no.

5
Two brothers named Moz Lowe and Boz Lowe
Came to blows at a strip show near Oslo,
But a muscular ho
With a taekwondo throw
Spelt the end of the road for the Bros. Lowe.

6
An accident happened in Oslo
When a traffic light made some dads’ car slow.
They were hit by a bus
Which engendered a fuss
That laid nearly all of those pas low.

7
In coming to this yes I was slow
And the reason of course is because lo -
And yes behold,
The truth must be told,
There aren't any good rhymes for Oslo.

Choices:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

 

One of my limerick heroes is Chris Doyle (now on OEDILF), and I wonder what he'd do with this one. These were not easy, were they? Plus...I just plain missed a syllable in the one I sent in so that makes it even more unselectable.

Because this was such a hard word to rhyme, I put the challenge out on OEDILF.

One problem of course might be pronunciation differences between the UK and US. Some of them work if I use my English accent.

Where'd you put it on OEDILF?

EDIT: I found it. Didn't come up on "new posts" when I looked.

Here's Doyle's:

To you oenophiles living in Oslo,
Johannesburg, Rome, and La Paz: Lo!
Keep whites like Chablis
Just as high as can be
In your glasses but reds like Shiraz low.

For the others posted in OEDILF, go here..

The problem here is exactly the same as the one in my other thread about doggerel/inaugural. Things that rhyme in the US with the short "o" vowel, don't always rhyme in UK English.

Yes, it is the same problem and it seems that the short "o" is the most difficult one to explain to Americans, they don't seem to have anything like it.

I linked to this site howjsay in Bob's other thread - it's a neat tool for checking the std British pronunciation (which is actually pretty similar to mine bar one or two).

I'd say that Oslo is easier to rhyme in an American accent - where it may be AWZ-loh or AHZ-loh - and more difficult in a British accent as in Oslo .

Meanwhile timon back at that OEDILF link has managed the first limerick so far with a set of rhymes that are perfect in UK English.

It may be perfect rhymes, Bob, but uses the same rhyme word in L2 and L5, and all rhymes are homophones. I think limerick 5 here also has perfect rhymes in UK English. It's certainly not easy to find perfect rhymes, but I think lim5 here is showing the way.

Shall we give it a couple more days to collect votes, and I'll announce the winner on monday?

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Daws:
It may be perfect rhymes, Bob, but uses the same rhyme word in L2 and L5, and all rhymes are homophones. I think limerick 5 here also has perfect rhymes in UK English. It's certainly not easy to find perfect rhymes, but I think lim5 here is showing the way.

Almost, though personally I'd pronounce Bros as bross rather than broz. My main problem is that it always feels like cheating to me if I make up a name to fit a rhyme. For example in my "doggerel poem" it would feel completely wrong to rhyme "doggerel" with "Mister Zoggerel". Just my own view of course.

I disagree about the homophones in timon's limerick, though.

"Oslo", "was low" and "Boz low" are not homophone rhymes because the stressed syllables are not homophones. A proper rhyme needs to have either the stressed syllable and all subsequent unstressed syllables as rhymes OR the stressed syllable as a rhyme and the subsequent syllables identical. When I have my purist hat on I consider the latter to be better rhymes than the former so that Oslo/was low is a better rhyme for me than Oslo/was though.
(Using the definition that considers "was low"/"Boz low" a homophone also makes doggerel/Zoggerel above a homophone and I refuse to believe that anyone could consider doggerel/Zogkernel to be a better rhyme.)

As always, YMMV

Bob

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

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
My main problem is that it always feels like cheating to me if I make up a name to fit a rhyme. For example in my "doggerel poem" it would feel completely wrong to rhyme "doggerel" with "Mister Zoggerel". Just my own view of course.

I agree that it's not ideal and can look plain lazy but it's also a ruse that's used for humorous effect on occasions and as a last resort when there are few rhyming options.

Totally contrived names work less well - Low and Lowe are common enough whereas Zoggerel is um ... not very.

I think it's also better if the name is used at the beginning of the limerick where it seems less like an afterthought than if it's the final rhyme.

I guess it's a matter of preference - there are lots of imperfect rhymes if you want to take that path eg "Oslo / was though" - and it's a personal thing whether you'd rather go with a made-up name, a homophone or a near rhyme when you're in a situation where you have to choose.

In general, Wordcraft is more accepting of imperfect rhymes than OEDILF.

quote:

Shall we give it a couple more days to collect votes, and I'll announce the winner on monday?

I never can understand why we get so few votes. I think if people don't write limericks they think they shouldn't vote (or they don't read this thread). I'll try to jiggle some elbows.

quote:

I think limerick 5 here also has perfect rhymes in UK English.

I refer to my brother as Bro all the time, but it's brow (as in crow). If I had more than one brother I'd refer to them as my Brows (as in crows), so to my way of thinking this doesn't rhyme at all really. I think my crappy Limerick 7 that nobody has voted for, at least has close to proper rhymes for Oslo with "was slow" and "because lo".

I agree that your crappy limerick has the best rhymes, Greg.

It raises the question of whether one should strive for grammatical perfection at the expense of zing. From the voting so far it would seem that the majority feel that a near rhyme with a good story wins out over perfect rhymes with a weak story.

I think Bros. with a capital B (abbreviation for family-owned businesses) eg Warner Bros. is pronounced (Broz) differently from bros with a small b (brohs).

Well the only way I've ever heard Warner Bros. pronounced is "Warner Brothers", but I am happy to stand corrected if the Broz pronunciation exists.

I tend to go: rhyme first, story second and meter third, but there are clearly others whose emphasis is the opposite way round, but I am sure the only real gems are the ones which cover all three and make you laugh as well.

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

quote:

From the voting so far it would seem that the majority feel that a near rhyme with a good story wins out over perfect rhymes with a weak story.

Of course I can only speak for myself, but for me, it all depends. I don't expect perfection, but I also won't pick a good story or a "zing" if there are major technical problems.

There was a British boy band in the late 1980s named "Bros". It comprised two brothers, plus some other guy. The band name was pronounced "bross", not "broz".

Bob, I agree pretty much with what you're saying, and admit that my homophones comment was perhaps misplaced. Nevertheless, I think lim5 is a better limerick than Timon's.

That I don't have a problem with Bros. may be that my pronunciation of Oslo is somehow influenced by living here, such that I don't here it as OZlo or OSSlo, but something in between, and Bros. lies in a similar zone for me.

I also agree with your purist-hat proper rhyme definition, but sometimes the former is acceptable. I made an effort that uses such rhymes and put it up at the OEDILF site. Unfortunately it also uses a proper name, so I'm sure you'll be disappointed

I think Kalleh’s right about it being a personal thing - sometimes a bizarre quirkiness takes my fancy, sometimes I’m a stickler for correctness. It’s a bit of a lottery.

I liked your limerick over at OEDILF, Michael, and I doubt it would be discounted solely on the basis of a made-up name. There are heaps of limericks over there with a made-up name and many of them are very funny. You might have your work cut out defending the near rhymes though. Generally, they're considered less than ideal, partly because they're distracting, but there are exceptions and some near rhymes are better than others.

The limericks that used “os-lo /os-though” may squeak through because of the similarity of the sounds “l" and “th”. With a little bit of smudging “os-lo” and “os-though” can sound quite similar – rather more so than “os-ro” or “os-mo”. A near rhyme that sneaks under the fence is less distracting than one that’s caught in the search light.

I agree that the near rhymes are not ideal, Stella, but I don't like the solutions that have used exact rhymes either. I think that the problem with many is that the stress needs to be forced on the syllable before "low" when it's really not natural to do this. The best solution I've seen so far is yours, but strangely nobody agreed with me!

OK! This was a tough one, and generated a lot of discussion both here and at OEDILF. The authors of the limericks were:

1: Bethree
2: Greg
3: Kalleh
4: Me
5: Stella
6: Proofreader
7: Greg

Rather embarassingly, I seem to have won, despite the fact that my limerick used near (in the broad sense) rhymes. Personally, I think that Stella's limerick was the best one I've seen, but nobody seemed to agree - Bros proved to be the sticking point apparently.

Kudos to Greg for being the first one out, and for having managed to produce two limericks. And kudos to everybody else who attempted to rhyme this impossible word.

Do I have to choose another now, or do I get to bestow this honour upon somebody else?

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

You mean Greg, right?

And...you aren't off the hook. You need to give a little workshopping advice. As far as who's up next...sorry, but it's you.

[P.S. regarding #3...I realized after it was submitted that I was missing a syllable in L2.]

Oops. More embarrassment! Yes, I meant Greg. Edited. Sorry.

Workshopping. Hmmm. I'll try.

1: Bethree's effort garnered 1 vote for her depressed Minnesotan Norwegian with a Hungarian name For me Laszlo doesn't really rhyme with Oslo, but given that nobody managed universally-accepted perfect rhymes this is hardly a bad thing.

2: Greg's first effort was one of my favorites, perhaps because he used the same imperfect rhyme strategy that I was working with. However, to get L5 to scan I needed to use three syllables for clearly, which isn't natural for me.

3: Kalleh, as she has already said, lost a syllable in L2. Unfortunately, her correction came after the voting had begun, and I didn't want to reset the poll given the trouble we had last time. She also employed a rather creative pronunciation of Mazda

4: This one was my effort employing near rhymes, or in the case of L2, far rhymes. I wasn't all that happy with this effort, but surprisingly it got the majority of the votes. I can only imagine that the theme was appealing.

5: Stella's limerick was, in my opinion, a class above all the others, and I am extremely surprised that this one didn't win. It had near perfect rhymes, and a good story (stripping seems to be a popular theme). However, Bros. seemed to cause problems for a lot of people. It only got my vote.

6: Proofreader's limerick also received a vote. I had problems with rhyming Oslo and car slow, and I guess this may be a dialect thing. But, since I also have problems with the rhymes in my own limerick, this is a minor complaint.

7: Greg's second effort was also a good one, with near perfect rhymes and a true story to boot. The problem for me with this was L3, which had a couple of syllables too few for my taste.


Well thanks for the limericks and for the votes. I will suggest another place name shortly.

quote:

Proofreader's limerick also received a vote. I had problems with rhyming Oslo and car slow, and I guess this may be a dialect thing

You got it. Just have to speak with a New England accent (as all good English-speakers should).