there once was a post on the green July 23, 2007 12:31 PM   Subscribe

SansPoint's limerick post needs to get sidebarred hard.
posted by boo_radley to Feature Requests at 12:31 PM (71 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite

Or it coulld just, like, be flagged as "fantastic."
posted by dersins at 12:42 PM on July 23, 2007


Or even just mail the mods.
posted by grouse at 12:45 PM on July 23, 2007


I almost flagged all kinds of things as "fantastic" before I realized the label was intended to mean:

fantastic : EXCELLENT, SUPERLATIVE (a fantastic meal)

And not:

1. a: based on fantasy :not real b: conceived or seemingly conceived by unrestrained fantasy c: so extreme as to challenge belief

I'm still disappointed.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:53 PM on July 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


Your suggestions are not nearly good enough, gentlemen. And to be honest, I think you both knew that going in.
posted by boo_radley at 12:56 PM on July 23, 2007


Ahem.
posted by dersins at 1:05 PM on July 23, 2007


I'd agree with what dersins said
Were I not such a fan of the thread
So rather than nitpick
I'm writing a limerick
To [hopefully] put complaints to bed

And to support boo_radley's aspiration
I second this thread's nomination
And moreover request
The next MeFi Music contest
Require poetry as inspiration.
posted by The Confessor at 1:07 PM on July 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


lol sidebard
posted by Eideteker at 1:08 PM on July 23, 2007 [11 favorites]


A post on MeFi's greensward
had Wolfdog laughing quite hard
'twasn't enough to flag it
he just had to drag it
to MeTa to get it sidebarred.
posted by Floydd at 1:09 PM on July 23, 2007


Next person to stammer that bullshit out over a shitty cord progression gets to be a mod, wheee!

Is this fun yet? Are we having fun?
posted by prostyle at 1:24 PM on July 23, 2007


Hey, buddy, I didn't stammer limerick-metered bullshit out over a shitty chord progression until after I got the job.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:27 PM on July 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Prostyle was a grump and a nag
no limericks earned his fantastic flag
'Are we having fun?'
He said to no one
and I said fuck off you douchebag.
posted by ND¢ at 1:54 PM on July 23, 2007 [4 favorites]


Anyone interested in compiling as list of the poems being riffed on? There are some I don't recognize and I'd like to read them in comparison.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:23 PM on July 23, 2007


man, i hope this thread fills up with thousands of poorly written limericks that don't scan properly, too. Because the joke isn't quite dead enough, yet.
posted by shmegegge at 2:31 PM on July 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


unSane totally wins that thread, by the way.
posted by mckenney at 2:40 PM on July 23, 2007


there once was a mefite named shmegegge
whose name was quite longegge
he grumbled of scansion
while hiding in his mansion
and eating a goddamn bucket of cocks.

I sort of lost momentum there at the end. Sorry, all.
posted by boo_radley at 2:40 PM on July 23, 2007 [5 favorites]


Shmeggege thinks the joke's run its course,
But it's like an unstoppable force,
While MeFites may yawn,
It goes on and on,
To the point of beating a dead horse.
posted by grouse at 2:42 PM on July 23, 2007


I have a silly culture question. Do you guys (Americans, specifically) also hear "The Limerick Melody" in your head when reading a limerick? That can't be a local thing, can it?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:21 PM on July 23, 2007


Anyone interested in compiling as list of the poems being riffed on?

I'll start a list. SPOILERS FOLLOW

























1. "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold
2. "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen
3. "Dulce et Decorum Est"
4. "Dulce et Decorum Est"
5. ? - Wallace Stevens
6. "Dulce et Decorum Est"
7. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
8. "Inferno" from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
9. "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams
10. ?
11. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Elliot
12. "This Is Just to Say"
13. Beowulf
14. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson
15. "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
16. Sonnet 18 (?) by William Shakespeare
17. "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan
18. "The Tyger" by William Blake
19. ?
20. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
21. "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
22. "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas
23. "Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment." by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
24. "Because I could not stop for Death" (?) by Emily Dickinson
25. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell
26. "Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment."
27. "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell
28. "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll
29. "If--" by Rudyard Kipling
30. "Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment."
posted by hydrophonic at 3:27 PM on July 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Most of those limericks don't scan
It's really annoying this man
Perhaps they're too proud
To read them aloud
Before they press "Post" with their hand
posted by Kwine at 3:34 PM on July 23, 2007 [4 favorites]


Pallas Athena takes the prize, as far as I'm concerned. Second place to FelliniBlank.
posted by Wolfdog at 3:35 PM on July 23, 2007


19 is The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats
posted by Kattullus at 3:44 PM on July 23, 2007


31. "'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson
32. ?
33. "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
34. "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
35. "Because I could not stop for Death"
36. ?
37. "The Waste Land " by T.S. Elliot
38. ?
39. "Naming of Parts" by Henry Reed
40. ?
41. "The Road Not Taken"
42. "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key
43. ?
44. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats
45. "Naming of Parts"
46. "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams
47. Mark Anthony's speech, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
posted by hydrophonic at 3:45 PM on July 23, 2007


32. Invictus by William Earnest Henley

36. The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron

38. Daddy by Sylvia Plath

43. In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound
posted by Kattullus at 3:56 PM on July 23, 2007


5 is The Emperor of Ice Cream.
posted by shmegegge at 4:01 PM on July 23, 2007


10. another version of Dulce et Decorum Est

40. Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley


Pallas Athena, Wolfdog, unSane, and bibliowench especially killed me.
posted by FelliniBlank at 4:05 PM on July 23, 2007


Dersins, flagging it as fantastic misses the point slightly. It's not the post itself that is fantastic, it is the ensuing limerickathon by the clever mefites that I find impressive. Many of which far surpass the feeble attempts of the link in the post itself.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:14 PM on July 23, 2007


The best one is by the duck by the oboe.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:16 PM on July 23, 2007


I enjoyed writing limericks in fourth grade.
posted by smackfu at 4:23 PM on July 23, 2007


smackfu: I did too. I also enjoyed eating ice cream, blowing bubbles, snuggling kitties and playing nintendo. All of which I will relish today as well. Grow up.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:33 PM on July 23, 2007


Katullus --

Catullus - Odi et amo and Lesbia’s Sparrow*
posted by ericb at 5:02 PM on July 23, 2007


One bright day, someone will declare a thread a passé, dead-horse embarrassment sixhours after it's posted. Only then will Metatalk achieve true sophistication.
posted by ormondsacker at 5:05 PM on July 23, 2007


"They're for children," smackfu glumly said
Of the limericks we lovingly read
"I'm adult, don't you see,
So much better than thee"
And proceeded to piss in the thread
posted by Meatbomb at 5:06 PM on July 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


My dad wrote a limerick with my name in it with a slant rhyme when I was a kid and I've always been a fastidious pain in the ass about good meter ever since. Does a word rhyme with itself?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:23 PM on July 23, 2007


I say no.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:29 PM on July 23, 2007


When the MeFites created a passel
Of limericks witty and facile
I was hoping to see
That it wasn't just me
Who read them in the voice of Carl Kasell.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:51 PM on July 23, 2007 [4 favorites]


Goodness, some of you know your poetry. Excuse me, I have some reading to go catch up on...
posted by mosessis at 5:55 PM on July 23, 2007


Why would a slant rhyme make you fastidious about meter?

(Rhyming a word with itself is the epitome of copping out, but a lot of people seem to have got the idea from Edward Lear, who always made the last line of his (lame) limericks a rehash of an earlier one, typically reusing the final word from the first line. That's great form if you don't want your limerick to have a punchline.)
posted by Wolfdog at 5:55 PM on July 23, 2007


Wolfdog

I am a committed mefite
A very committed mefite
With a big lazy ass
A very big lazy ass
And did I mention committed mefite?
posted by The Confessor at 5:59 PM on July 23, 2007


Does a word rhyme with itself?

I would probably go with "tit shelf."

Yes - I know what you meant.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:00 PM on July 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


48. ?
49. ?
50. "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" by Christopher Marlowe
51. "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" by Sir Walter Raleigh
52. ? - John Donne
53. ?
54. "Ozymandias"
55. "Odi et amo" by Catullus
56. "Lesbia’s Sparrow" by Catullus
57. ?
58. ?
59. ?
60. The Odyssey by Homer

I'm recognizing less and less, and I've got to get dinner on. Anybody else want to continue the list?
posted by hydrophonic at 6:05 PM on July 23, 2007


I was thinking of the Beastie Boys rhyming commercial with commercial and I feel like I heard it in some Beyonce song recently.

identity, awesome.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:06 PM on July 23, 2007


It's wankery, pure and simple, but while gleefully indulging (and no doubt savaging scansions and mangling meters as I did so), it occured to me that, ah, this is what it must feel like to walk into a bar and start a conversation entirely of baseball stats, or Seinfeld jokes, or wargame terminology or whathaveyou — not that I was the wittiest or most erudite (Kattullus and FelliniBlank are amazing), but nonetheless, I got it, it made sense, the metas piled up and I could contribute. The fundamental rationale of Metafilter, yes?

Anyway, I didn't see this mentioned, but I believe the limerick is the sole native English rhyme scheme; all others are imports, primarily from vowel-laden Romance languages. Interesting.
posted by Haruspex at 6:29 PM on July 23, 2007


smackfu: I did too. I also enjoyed eating ice cream, blowing bubbles, snuggling kitties and playing nintendo. All of which I will relish today as well. Grow up.

Well you certainly took my comment in a negative way.
posted by smackfu at 6:32 PM on July 23, 2007


48. none
49. O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
53. Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
57. My Last Duchess by Robert Browning
58. ?
59. Sonnet 130 (My mistress' eyes) by William Shakespeare

61. ? Il pleure dans mon coeur . . . by Paul Verlaine
62. Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
63. ? -- oooo, I know I know this one!
64. Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
65. Don Juan by George Gordon, Lord Byron
66. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
67. Howl by Allen Ginsburg
68. ?
69. The Tyger by William Blake
70. The Iliad by Homer
71. ditto
72. Sacred Emily by Gertrude Stein
73. The Lady of Shallott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
74. The Aeneid by Virgil
75. The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe
76. The Tyger by Blake
77. ?
78. Theme from Gilligan's Island
79. another Lady of Shallott
80. Theme from Beverly Hillbillies
81. Chicago by Carl Sandburg
82. the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V by Shakespeare
83. Paradise Lost by John Milton
84. another Howl
85. (totally stellar) This Be the Verse by Philip Larkin
86. She Walks in Beauty by Byron
87. Grasshopper by E. E. Cummings
88. general Shakespeare sonnet response
89. Mu-lan (anonymous)
90. Fog by Carl Sandburg
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:47 PM on July 23, 2007


68 is The Highwayman, by Noyes, if I've counted correctly.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:01 PM on July 23, 2007


91. The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
92. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
93. The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot
94. ?
95. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
96. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
97. ?
98. Resume by Dorothy Parker
99. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
100. ?
101. ?
102. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
103. Multiple
104. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
105. ?
106. anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings

Sorry about the gaps. I was bored labeling and I really just wanted to get to mine.
posted by ND¢ at 7:20 PM on July 23, 2007


91. The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
92. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
93. The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot
94. the preface (?) to Les fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
95. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
96. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
97. Sonnet 23 (Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint) by John Milton (tough one)
98. Résumé by Dorothy Parker
99. Inferno, Divine Comedy, Dante
100. ?
101. ?
102. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
103. Richard Corey by Edward Arlington Robinson
104. another This Is Just to Say by Williams
105. ?
106. Robert Bruce's March To Bannockburn by Robert Burns ?
107. The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear
108. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
109. ?
110. Anyone lived in a pretty how town by E. E. Cummings
111. Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?) by Shakespeare
112. Sonnet 43 (How do I love thee? Let me count the ways) from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
113. Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
114. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by Yeats
115. Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee
116. Elegy in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
117. Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory
118. another Elegy in a Country Churchyard
119. a couple of soliloquies from Hamlet by Shakespeare
120. another Elegy in a Country Churchyard
121. La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
122. The Cantos by Ezra Pound
123. ?
124. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot
125. ?
126. The Lady's Dressing Room by Jonathan Swift
127. Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
128. Trees by Joyce Kilmer
129. Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
130. Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan
131. The Red Wheel Barrow by William Carlos Williams
132. another Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town by Cummings
133. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
134. The Tay Bridge Disaster by William McGonagall
135. another Red Wheel Barrow
136. The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

OK, somebody else's turn.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:22 PM on July 23, 2007


94's last line is from Au lecteur by Baudelaire but the rest comes from here and there.

101 is The Whitsun Weddings by Larkin.

109 is The Epic of Gilgamesh by Sin-liqu-unninni (sort of).
posted by Kattullus at 7:52 PM on July 23, 2007


I always hated how "No Scrubs" by TLC rhymed "at me" with "with me," right there in the most-repeated line in the chorus. Bad enough to rhyme a word with itself, but "at me" and "with me" don't even rhyme the preceding word. Rhyming "commercial" with "commercial" is like "if you've got the notion" with "second that emotion" in comparison.

I've never met anyone who shared my outrage, though.
posted by ibmcginty at 7:59 PM on July 23, 2007


137. Autumn haiku ("world of dew") by Issa
138. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
139. Howl by Allen Ginsberg
140. ?
141. Lycidas by John Milton
142. Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
143. Original limerick by MeFi's own Deathalicious
144. Sonnet XLIII ("How do I love thee? Let me count the ways") by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
145. In Memory of W. B. Yeats by W. H. Auden
146. Original sonnet on a man from Nantucket by MeFi's own It's Raining Florence Henderson
147. Snow-bound by John Greenleaf Whittier
148. A Visit from St. Nicholas ("The night before Christmas") by Clement Clarke Moore (or possibly not)
149. Resume by Dorothy Parker
150. Three Blind Mice (traditional)
posted by Kattullus at 8:08 PM on July 23, 2007


I once realized in horror, after the fact, that an otherwise totally solid lyric I'd been feeling pretty good about had an identity rhyme in it. It was all, god damn it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:11 PM on July 23, 2007


I'm desperately (well... not desperately per se... that's hyperbole) trying to remember what the name is for poems that don't actually rhyme but seem to do so from the spelling.
posted by Kattullus at 8:18 PM on July 23, 2007


^ eye rhyme
posted by iconomy at 8:29 PM on July 23, 2007


We know you do, dear.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:29 PM on July 23, 2007


Oui no ewe dew, deer.
posted by iconomy at 8:31 PM on July 23, 2007


I'm pretty sure that's illegal in this state.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:39 PM on July 23, 2007


Seems as good a time as any to mention this old-ish Metachat thread, with some limerichal tastiness.
posted by rob511 at 9:29 PM on July 23, 2007


151.
152.
153. St Ives (trad.)
154. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
155. Ozymandias
156. The Flea
157. We all Scream for Ice Cream (trad.)
158. Ozymandius
159. Ten Little Indians (trad.)
160. Jabberwock
161. Eeny Meenie Minie Moe (trad.)
162.
163. Ten Bottles (on the wall) (trad.)
164. soliloquy (Sylvia Plath)
165.
166. The Cremation of Sam McGee (Frost)
167. Little Bo Peep (trad.)
168. Fox in Sox (Dr. Seuss)
169.
170. Humpty Dumpty (trad.)
171.
172.
173.
posted by Meatbomb at 10:04 PM on July 23, 2007


Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism is in there somewhere. I'm really hoping someone somewhere back then used quail feathers for pens. It rhymed so nice...
posted by mediareport at 10:30 PM on July 23, 2007


I thought I could write one of these
how hard could it be, I mean jeeze
but my ideas were dated
it's in truth, complicated
I hope now this effort will please
posted by Arturus at 11:36 PM on July 23, 2007


It's terribly scary to post in these threads as a European. Once you get to the show everyone seems to be muttering about dead horses and your limerick is at the very end of the thread, nothing more than a mark of shame.
posted by Skyanth at 12:45 AM on July 24, 2007


There was once a place called the gray
Where snarky jack-asses would bray
Bad call-outs suck
But who gives a fuck?
Step back from the keyboard, go play!
posted by SteveTheRed at 1:53 AM on July 24, 2007


use a wiki ppl
posted by Firas at 4:49 AM on July 24, 2007


77. ?

That'd be "Sick" by America's greatest poet, Shel Silverstein.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 7:50 AM on July 24, 2007


You know what sucks? Some of these limericks, that's what! Not all though.
posted by Mister_A at 8:28 AM on July 24, 2007


58. The Parable of the Old Man and the Young by Wilfred Owen.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:41 AM on July 24, 2007


There once was a rapping tomato
That's right, I said rapping tomato
He rapped all day
From April to May
And also guess what? It was me.
posted by ALongDecember at 9:05 AM on July 24, 2007


140 Because I Could Not Stop For Death, Emily Dickinson
151 Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare
152 To His Mistress Going to Bed, John Donne
162 To A Mouse, Robert Burns
171 The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
172 If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso, Gertrude Stein
173 anyone lived in a pretty how town, e.e. cummings
174 Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [not even close to a limerick]
175 I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died, Emily Dickinson
176 The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats
177 Howl, Allen Ginsberg
178 Howl, Allen Ginsberg
179 Frog Haiku, Basho
180 LOLCATS
181
182
183 Ridin', Chamillionaire
184
185
186
187
188
189 At the California Insititute of Technology, Richard Brautigan
190 Liar Liar Pants on Fire, trad.
191
192
193 The Lord's Prayer, Mt 6:9-13
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201 Bath Song, J.R.R. Tolkien
202 original by UbuRovias
203 Macbeth, William Shakespeare
204 Snail Haiku, Kobayashi Issa
205
206
207 The Incy Wincy Spider, trad.
208 it may not always be so, e.e. cummings
209 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
210
211 The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Dr. Seuss
212
213
214 untitled Vogon poem, Douglas Adams [I note in this case it's appropriate that the rhymes and meter are screwed up]
215 In Memoriam, Alfred Lord Tennyson
216 Don Juan aux enfers, Charles Baudelaire
217 Death Be Not Proud, John Donne
218
219 Frog haiku, Basho
220 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost
221 The Colonel, Carolyn Forché
222
223
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:28 AM on July 24, 2007


Someone wrote a limerick about the bath song from LOTR. I've always thought that song qualified as great literature.
posted by Tehanu at 9:47 AM on July 24, 2007


Oh, damn. I missed it all. Here's my belated contribution:

That roadblock looks just like a stallion.
(Please pretend that this rhymes in italian.)
Paul & Celia rock,
& I also like Bach -
Influenza infinity scallion.
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur at 10:28 PM on July 24, 2007


206 evidently chicken town
posted by seanyboy at 1:33 AM on July 25, 2007


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