The very first limerick that I had to learn off by heart at school was this:)
There was an old man from Peru
Who dreamed that he ate his shoe
He awoke in the night
In a terrible fright
To find it was perfectly true.
Just by reciting this I greatly entertained my parents, cousins and friends. Time and again I reeled it off and time and again they laughed. It was a wonderful feeling. I had the power to make them laugh. It's a wonderful feeling to make people laugh and it's also wonderful to be with people who make you laugh.
When Jessica Rabbit was asked what she saw in Roger Rabbit she replied that it was the way he made her laugh.
Limericks will usually raise a smile, they are mostly nonsense. It's also the rhythm and the beat. The origin of the limerick is unknown. It might have come from the chorus of an 18th century Irish soldiers' song, 'Will you come up to Limerick?' However it seems to go right back to the Middle Ages in France and an 11th century manuscript demonstrates the limerick's cadence:-
The lion is wondrous strong
And full of the wiles of wo,
And whether he pleye
Or take his preye
He cannot do but slo (slay).
Edward Lear was very fond of limericks and wrote many in his 'Book of Nonsense', (1846). Here is just one example.
There was an Old Man of Dumbree,
Who taught little owls to drink tea;
For he said, 'To eat mice,'
Is not proper or nice,'
That amiable Man of Dumbree.
Any tedious task can be made more enjoyable by putting in some rhythm and beat.Trying to play around with words and making them jostle along together in an entertaining way is a good way to make a language more lively. Tongue twisters help you understand some of the absurdities of English. Here is a verse that is both a limerick and a tongue twister, but I'm not sure who wrote it.
A tutor who taught on the flute
Tried to teach two tooters to toot,
Said the two to the tutor
'Is it harder to toot, or
To tutor two tutors to too?'.
When Jessica Rabbit was asked what she saw in Roger Rabbit she replied that it was the way he made her laugh.
Limericks will usually raise a smile, they are mostly nonsense. It's also the rhythm and the beat. The origin of the limerick is unknown. It might have come from the chorus of an 18th century Irish soldiers' song, 'Will you come up to Limerick?' However it seems to go right back to the Middle Ages in France and an 11th century manuscript demonstrates the limerick's cadence:-
The lion is wondrous strong
And full of the wiles of wo,
And whether he pleye
Or take his preye
He cannot do but slo (slay).
Edward Lear was very fond of limericks and wrote many in his 'Book of Nonsense', (1846). Here is just one example.
There was an Old Man of Dumbree,
Who taught little owls to drink tea;
For he said, 'To eat mice,'
Is not proper or nice,'
That amiable Man of Dumbree.
Any tedious task can be made more enjoyable by putting in some rhythm and beat.Trying to play around with words and making them jostle along together in an entertaining way is a good way to make a language more lively. Tongue twisters help you understand some of the absurdities of English. Here is a verse that is both a limerick and a tongue twister, but I'm not sure who wrote it.
A tutor who taught on the flute
Tried to teach two tooters to toot,
Said the two to the tutor
'Is it harder to toot, or
To tutor two tutors to too?'.
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| An owl drinking tea? |
Brilliant and very interesting post!
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