…just in case any of you have any free time at all (I currently do not–5 big projects all with the same due date: this Wednesday), I thought I’d share a great place to get completely lost in productive obsessive-compulsive behavior.
Ok, you might have noticed I have a tendency to write things in verse. Just a bit. Once in a while. But it’s not like I have decided to, say, write the entire unabridged dictionary in Limerick form. In good limericks, with proper rhymes and anapest meter and peer review. And (I’m sure there is an appropriate Douglas Adams phrase here, but as I said, I am busy) alphabetically. It began in 2004 (from an idea hatched in 2003), and has made it to the early D words so far. I have contributed about a hundred, but only just over half of them have passed peer review so far; these people are strict. And they are good. And they are obsessive! There are authors with thousands of approved limericks!
So if that sort of thing tickles your fancy, pop over and give it a try! Or, if you just need a definition for something… in limerick form… for a word that begins DA or earlier… they probably have it.
Some of mine from the site:
The cuttlefish: squid-like, you think?
Just a cephalopod in the drink?
Then you also should know it
Refers to a poet,
Or any who hide in their ink.
browse by Cuttlefish
As I browsed through the books I’d requested,
The librarian had me arrested!
I cried, “Surely you’ve read
Francis Bacon, who said
That some books should be chewed and digested!”
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
—Francis Bacon, Sr. (1561–1626)
The OEDILF takes the planet by storm—
Some day soon, we will find it the norm!
Words explained in great brevity
(Brief) and with levity—
Defined in the limerick form!
(oh-DILF)
The little 4-H-er was praised
For the beautiful calf she had raised.
The judge said, “It shows
That you love Elsie Rose.”
“Oh, I will”, said the little girl, “braised.”
Elsie Rose will be browned in fat and then simmered in a closed container.
She’s a robot; she doesn’t look real,
But she still has a certain appeal:
She has silicon eyes
And molybdenum thighs
And an ass made of chromium steel.
In 1921, when Karel Capek introduced the term robot, robots were assumed to be humanoid in appearance. Things have changed; most modern robots are not humanoid, and the term chromium steel has been replaced by stainless steel, referring to corrosion-resistant steel containing chromium content of at least 10.5% by weight.
Look again, and you might doubt your eyes:
It’s the cuttlefish, cloaked in disguise!
What’s its trick? There, within
Its remarkable skin
Are chromatophores, changing in size.
Chromatophores—cells, containing pigments, that can contract or dilate—are responsible for the amazing and ever-changing appearance of the cuttlefish. Cuttlefish make chameleons look like rank amateurs.
Wait, aren’t there words that should be impossible to write into a proper limerick? It’s a relatively strict form, after all. For instance, I may just be phonetically retarded, but I count more syllables in “antidisestablishmentarianism” than can be in any one line of a limerick, difficulties in rhyming it amusingly aside.
I suggest going there and searching for “antidisestablishmentarianism”. There are actually a few entries–some are better limerick form than others, but at least one (if I recall correctly) does a very good job as both limerick and definition!