Here are the entries for Warren. I'm surprised there were so few on what I thought would be an easy rhyme.

Question:
!. An old Scottish miner in Warren
Was bewitched by a beauty named Lauren.
As his lust rose she shrieked,
But her interest was piqued
By the size of the stones in his sporran.

2. Hamish came from the Highlands to Warren
But he found it confusing and foreign.
On the Fourth of July
He was seen marching by
With a Liberty Bell in his sporran.

3. When McDonald absconded to Warren
The locals decried him as foreign
On account of his wont,
While ensconced in Vermont,
To set fire to the flag with his sporran.

4. With a powerful bite of his jaw on,
The part he’d decided to gnaw on
Said the rabbit, “My hutch
Does not appeal much,
I’m escaping to go back to Warren.”

5. A gunslinging cowboy in Warren
Cried out, “Hey, you. You shot my pa ‘n’
My ma ‘n’ my sister.
I’m telling you mister
The time’s come for laying some law on.

6. Said a Scotsman, while visiting Warren,
This place is decidedly foreign
But if I see a rabbit
I’ll chase it and nab it,
And skin it and make me a sporran.

7. A young whore who called herself Lauren
Was working the streets down in Warren.
Asked a man on her turf,
”Do you do soixante neuf?”
She said “Anything, love - even foreign.”

8.A trick of a stripper from Warren,
A collector of coins - mostly foreign,
Was really quite nifty,
Whenever slipped fifty
She’d magically pop out a florin.

9. A piper by name of McGaurin
Was wowing the women of Warren,
For under the kilt
The Scotsman was built
With a package as big as his sporran.

10. “How the hell did your dick get so far in?”
Asked a woman I screwed up in Warren.
“I have quite a tight twat.”
“No, indeed it is not.
It’s so big I could drive my new car in.”

11. There’s an ugly old woman in Warren
Who puts out porno films she’s the star in.
While her body rates “eight”
Her performance ain’t great,
And her face is what guys find most jarrin’.

Choices:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven

 

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
Here are the entries for Warren. I'm surprised there were so few on what I thought would be an easy rhyme.

Well, as I said previously it's not an easy rhyme with my pronunciation - "foreign", "sporran" and "Lauren" are about the only things that work, which explains the preponderance of verses about Scotsmen! Nevertheless I don't think you should be disappointed with eleven - it's the most I've seen during my time on Wordcraft (jointly with my Box game, which I expected to be popular).

Vote early; vote often.

In a spirit of pure perversity I refuse to vote for anything using those rhymes!

Even your own?

I would, of course, never vote for my own anyway.

What's with this here voting embargo?
Should the place name have been Nome or Fargo?
I don't mean to be surly,
But vote often and early:
The same way they vote in Chicago.

I believe Bob spoke partly in jest
Bout his vote in this glorious quest -
Though we find some rhymes foreign
We can't vote on Warren
Cause we each think our own is the best.

As I have previously remarked, I never vote for my own work in this poll, even if I genuinely believe it to be the best (which has sometimes been the case). It wouldn't matter were there a hundred or so voters, but with fewer than a dozen it would make the results silly if everyone voted for his or her own work; every limerick would be first equals.

I was just trying to get a laugh Richard, but now I'm sorry I tried.

I laughed. More in despair than humour but I definitely laughed.

I wasn't commenting on your limerick - just on the comments in general about voting for oneself.

It's a shame that this competition isn't better supported, since it's both challenging and interesting.

I can agree with that. Warren was a hell of a challenge to rhyme, possibly the hardest one we've ever had.

Yeah I agree, but the problem is we don't do anything to promote ourselves - we just hope people will somehow discover us and join the throng and start contributing and voting. We don't make it to the first few pages of Google if you search for "limerick" or "funny limericks". Even if you get a bit more specific and search for "limerick game" the best we do is No. 14 for this entry "Limerick Game: Geelong Poll", so it is going to be pretty hard for people into limericks to find us anyway.

Those of us, myself included, who have Websites should put Links to the Forum on our Webpages to get us further up the Google hierarchy.

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

Also, if you want to promote us, press the Facebook "like" button, or tweet about us - the buttons are situated handily at the top of the page.

Were I on facebook or twitter I would do exactly that. I'm not so I can't. I do mention wordcraft as often as possible on my blog but no one ever reads that either so it's a largely symbolic gesture.

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
We don't make it to the first few pages of Google if you search for "limerick" or "funny limericks".

I wouldn't expect it - the site isn't specifically about limericks. (I note that the OEDILF doesn't come up on a search either, and they've got rather more limericks than we have!) What's galling is that you get sites coming up on Google like this one, where the standard is absolutely abysmal.

I do think four votes in total is a bit pathetic, though - that's fewer people than originally submitted entries. I'd like to know why we don't get votes from more of the people who are members but don't post, such as the ones listed on "Newest Members". You don't need to be active on the boards to take part in a vote, so why not let us know what limericks you like?

quote:

You don't need to be active on the boards to take part in a vote, so why not let us know what limericks you like?

Or if you are actually reading any of the posts.

I missed sending a limerick in, but I've voted. There are only 4 votes and yet 6 people are talking here. Get to it!

quote:

What's galling is that you get sites coming up on Google like ...

Yeah - I was silly enough to take a quick look - they are unbelievably poor - they have no rhythm and most of them don't scan, they don't even raise a smirk, and despite the fact that most of the contributors think the only thing you need for a limerick is an AABBA rhyme structure regardless of the length of any of the lines, and totally irrespective of syllable emphasis, some of them can't even get the rhymes right.

Kalleh - though my limerick above was for fun, it is the actual reason I haven't voted, and Proof is possibly holding his vote back in case he needs to split a tie.

quote:

Those of us, myself included, who have Websites should put Links to the Forum on our Webpages to get us further up the Google hierarchy.

Our Wordcraft comes up on my Google searches first and has for years. I know it varies, though, based on where you are.

I'd vote, Greg. If you want to vote for your own, go for it. Proof, I'd vote too were I you. If there's a tie, you can still break it. The more votes, the merrier!

quote:

Our Wordcraft comes up on my Google searches

What search term are you using, Kalleh? Not "limericks" I'm sure.

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:

quote:

Originally posted by Greg S:
We don't make it to the first few pages of Google if you search for "limerick" or "funny limericks".

I wouldn't expect it - the site isn't specifically about limericks. (I note that the OEDILF doesn't come up on a search either, and they've got rather more limericks than we have!) What's galling is that you get sites coming up on Google like this one, where the standard is absolutely abysmal.

I agree - very poor limericks in most cases and most of them are also quite old. Unfortunately there seems to be no mechanism for commenting on them or I'd have let the webmaster know what I thought of his limericks!

quote:

What search term are you using, Kalleh? Not "limericks" I'm sure.

No, I thought he meant Wordcraft when he wanted us higher on the hierarchy. Sorry about that!

So, I just went to Google and put in "limericks." On my first page I didn't get OEDILF (which I surely had expected) nor WC, but guess what came up? This is ridiculous! My blog! My tiny and unimpressive blog isn't even about limericks at all, though Google cites an April, 2009, post about limericks. That is so odd. It must just be that way on my computer since it's my blog.

quote:

It must just be that way on my computer since it's my blog.

Yes. I'm also subscribed to your blog and when I search Google for limericks I see two references to your site on the first page. Underneath the link is

quote:

Nancy Spector (Kalleh on blogspot.com) shared this

The two links are from April and October 2009. They don't appear if I search using Bing.

My Google search for "limericks" gets me a load of very poor sites with OEDILF not appearing until page 5. Wordcraft doesn't appear in the first ten pages.

Of course, the way that Google's algorithm works is a mystery to me - what I do believe is that the age of the site has something to do with it. My own site is generally on page one for most of the "travel industry training" type search terms - and I have paid very little to SEO organisations - but I have had the site for a long time.

I for one am glad limerick scorin’
Is not spammed; I prefer our fair quorum.
And the grammarly zest
With which we do jest
The hoi polloi’d no doubt find borin’

SEO 101

Not that I have studied it in great detail but my Sudoku website (www.sudoku-help.com) ranks No. 1 out of many millions of pages on each of the following search strings - "sudoku help", "help sudoku" & "help with sudoku", and I haven't spent a brass razoo on SEO services.

Firstly you must have relevant content and the words being searched for must appear on the page somewhere, and the more often the better, provided you haven't cheated. So just repeating the words over and over again without relevant surrounding context won't help because Google works out that you are trying to fool it.

Google refines the algorithm often mainly to outsmart the people who try to fool it, and to give searchers more relevant results, but the basic tenet on which their original algorithm was based is still a significant factor, which is the more people who link to your site the more popular it is, and therefore the higher your ranking becomes. The amount added for each link to your page is however divided by the number of links on the referring page. So a Webpage of 10 links, one of which is to your Webpage, is 100 times more powerful in determining your ranking than a Webpage with 1000 links on it. Also more weight is given when the referring page is itself popular. Wikipedia is a very popular site, edited by the Public, so there are frequent wars in the "External Links" section of most articles, because people try to edit the External Links section to make Wikipedia refer to their site.

I had a very good reason for adding a link in Wikipedia's article on mX Newspaper, to my Website, because my puzzles appear in that paper daily and my Website is the only source of the solutions (which I do not publish in the paper). Every time I added it, I zoomed up the rankings, but within a few days someone would delete it again. I eventually gave up putting it back in, because my site is now consistently No. 1 on the key search strings, so I don't need Wikipedia's help any more.

Hope you find this a little bit enlightening.

Interesting.

I have spent a small amount on SEO - but only a small amount. I do use a company called Scoot, who have their own directories and I imagaine that they will have referrals to me that must help.

I also get a lot of referrals from Armchair Advice, primarily because that site is well-used by people seeking employment in another field and who thus search for "retraining" which, on that site, brings up a link to my site - www.retraining-uk.com - which might not be what those who click on the link need, but which must help in my ranking.

A little more on SEO. As Greg has hinted, writing the copy for each page is important. To get the best results the keywords you want Google to index should be repeated a number of times, but in an unforced way. Judicious use of emphasis and headers to point to some of the most important words or phrases helps as well. Putting keywords in the title of the page is also good. Don't overdo it, though, or Google will spot it and mark you down.

I just searched for "limerick game" (with quotes) and WC's Geelong poll comes up on the first page. It's likely that that's because that forms part of the title of the page, whereas "limericks" on its own is too broad. However, I suspect that few people will actually search for "limerick game" as a term.

Hey, Greg, see your PMs. We'd love to publish some of your limericks in the book, but we need your permission.

Well, being on the first Google page must have been my 5 minutes of fame. Now I am no where to be found. Oh well. I basked when I could!

With all this tangential discussion the original game seems to have been forgotten. It looks as though everyone who intends to vote has done so, so could we have the results please?

A bit late but here are the authors of this game's limericks

One -- Mike
Two -- Guy Barry
Three -- Mike
Four -- BobHale
Five -- BobHale
Six -- BobHale
Seven -- Richard English
Eight -- Greg S
Nine -- Greg S
Ten -- Proofreader
Eleven -- Proofreader

Seven, ten, and eleven all got one vote each but nine (Greg S) was the winner with two votes.

I'm surprised not more people voted or even participated in what I thought would be an easy rhyme.

Greg S gets to choose the next one -- Savastopol, perhaps?

Entering three clearly split my vote. If I add all of my votes together I get... er zero.

I knew there was a flaw in my argument.

I was wondering who wrote limericks 4 and 5 as I couldn't for the life of me work out how to rhyme "jaw on" or "law on" with "Warren". I assumed it was an American English speaker so was quite surprised to discover it was Bob!

Can anyone else get those words to rhyme? The only way I can do it is by adding an intrusive "r" after "jaw/law", but I thought that was a British habit, not an American one. Or I suppose you could use a very sloppy pronunciation of "Warren" without any "r" at all ("waw-on"), but that sounds dreadful.

As I said, you can't. I was deliberately stretching it as far as I could go because otherwise EVERY limerick HAD TO contain two of the three possible rhymes foreign/sporran/Lauren.

There are, as far as my fairly extensive research went, NO other rhymes possible within any common accents of English.

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

quote:

NO other rhymes possible within any common accents of English

Surely you are old enough Bob to remember the days of Sterling currency in which the 2-"Bob" bit was in fact known as a "florin". I really don't understand why my limerick using that rhyme didn't attract any votes, at least from you Poms. I actually preferred it to my winning entry. Another example for you Guy, where one's own preferred entry is not necessarily the one others will like.

I will post a new game soon.

/ˈflɒrɪn/
/ˈspɒrən/

No rhyme there, final vowel sounds are different.

OK - fair enough! Must be just us lazy Aussies who pronounce it that way. Over here it is a schwa at the end and therefore a perfect rhyme. Given that I'm the only Aussie playing the game, then the only potential vote would in fact have been my own.

Perhaps my other Antipodean colleague, Stella from New Zealand, might pronounce it similarly, but it is some considerable time since she has played this game. Does anyone know if she is still involved in other Wordcraft Forums?

I never came across Stella, but it appears that her last post to Wordcraft was in April of last year.

Incidentally, I sometimes hear "foreign" pronounced as /ˈfɒrɪn/, with a clear "i" sound in the final syllable. I don't know if anyone here uses that pronunciation but if so then it would have reduced the choice of possible rhymes even further.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Guy Barry,

Stella last posted in January of 2011 here. She has been a pretty good Wordcrafter, and even came to Chicago once and met Shu and me.

The new game has been posted.