Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site allegra.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!dep
From: dep@allegra.UUCP (Dewayne E. Perry)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Limericks
Message-ID: <2619@allegra.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 20-Jul-84 11:32:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: allegra.2619
Posted: Fri Jul 20 11:32:16 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jul-84 03:44:16 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 55

meter is putting one foot after the other.

	The limerick is furtive and mean;
	You must keep her in close quarantine,
	   Or she sneaks to the slums
	   And promptly becomes
	Disorderly, drunk, and obscene.           [Morris Bishop]

As noted in the above, limericks are often bawdy.  However, bawdiness is not
a sufficient condition of limerickhood.  Note that the limerick has five 
lines, is rhymed aabba, lines 1, 2, and 5 are trimeter, lines 3 and 4 
are dimeter, and each foot is generally anapestic.

One of the first limerick-like verses can be found in Shakespeare's Othello,
Act 2, Scene 3 with the following lines sung by Iago:

	And let me the canakin clink, clink;
	and let me the canakin clink.
	   A soldier's a man;
	   O, man's life's but a span,
	Why then, let a soldier drink.

Edward Lear is generally considered to be the father of the limerick.
Though relatively clever, they almost always repeat the the rhyming
words of the first line.

	There was an old man with a beard
	Who said, "It is just what I feared!
	   Two owls and a hen,
	   Four larks and a wren
	Have all built their nests in my beard!" 

Today, we expect more of a ingenious and humerous twist of the last line
such as found in this limerick by Ogden Nash

	There was a young belle of old Natchez
	Whose garments were always in patchez.
	   When comment arose
	   On the state of her clothes
	She, drawled, "When ah itchez, ah scratchez."

A lovely violation of the rhyme scheme is this limerick by  W.S.Gilbert

	There was an old man of St. Bees,
	Who was stung in the arm by a wasp.
	   When asked, "Does it hurt?"
	   He relied, "No, it doesn't.
	I'm so glad that it wasn't a hornet."


So this is the end of Part one.
My friends, I have only begun
   to speak of light verse
   that will only get worse
with each part.  You'll be glad when I'm done.   [dep]