I knew Fliss was special from the very first microsecond. She is not referring to this top-, or better, bottomological thing I wear:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_o...s_(mathematics). She, I estimate, has megatubeophobia: fear of extra-ordinary irrigators.

🤣

Thank you, Allen.


There was an Old Person of Ischia,
Whose conduct grew friskier and friskier;
He would twirl through the streets,
Calling everyone "Sweets!"
And his drinking grew whiskier and whiskier.

- - -

There was an Old Person of Leeds,
Whose head was infested with beads;
When they said, "Oh, what foolery!"
She sneezed beautiful jewellery
To meet all her financial needs.

Ooh: pew? Rhyme variation time?
 

Variatio !

Can we let this excellent thread go thread-bare through the night without allowing echoes from (gulp) geckos that use end rhymes that arose after reading the Leerish predecessors? Not I, said the third little tice. The operative ear-worm queue cue rhyme was 'pew'.

it might not be great, but what is these days?

A Rogerian scholar from Drew
Used language distinctly non-ewe:
"Moi bams like a ram
If be loaded with spam
When feeling Cro-Magnon and blue."

Allen, do you mean you'd like a slant rhyme at the end? Hopefully Roger will permit this <(:-)

Rogerians are therapists who generally echo a patient's remarks. The theory being that hearing a statement, complaint, insight repeated from another person, possibly in a different tone of voice, is less manipulative or less suspect than some high hat analysis from a Freudian transference figure. Remind me to get a high hat war bonnet for myself. Centurion red plumes with whistle might do. Testudo nunc !! Slant rhymes are not in Slater's control, I think.

I have a revision:

A Rogetian scholar we knew
Used language distinctly non-ewe:
"Moi bams like a ram
If be loaded with spam
When feeling Cro-Magnon and blue."

Allen, I'm sure you'd look very fine in a high hat war bonnet. I like my party hat quite a lot at the mo <(:-)

I didn't know the term 'Rogerian', but I recognise the technique as I've copyedited a few Psychology books over the years. I particularly liked an instructive volume that featured a section on how to get rid of a patient when they won't stop talking. You put your hand firmly on their shoulder, say 'Well, it was great to talk today, Bob!' (Bob was the case study), and walk with them rather forcefully towards the door. I also took Psychology as an 'ancillary' subject during my degree.

That's a good revision. I note that slant rhymes are out of Roger Slater's control, but I wonder whether he agrees with this!

Well, it was a great talk today. That'll be forty-five squid.

I hope that this thread will be continued with other limericks, perhaps even by me, whether or not they are based on Lear or not. My own just above, with revision, is nothing much, failing to meet my own standards in both cases for universal clarity and wide interest. It's not even obscene. I am going back to my Eratosphere "quiet room" for a while, and if need be I will lock all doors.

C'mon people, limerate if you can, limerate if you don't can !

There was an Old Man of Bohemia
Whose daughter was christened Euphemia,
She was stalking Brad Pitt
But she said, "I'll admit,
There are times I find George Clooney dreamier."

**

There was an Old Person of Cadiz
Who was always polite to the ladies,
And although he was old,
His conquests, all told,
Numerically topped Warren Beatty’s.

**

There was a Young Person of Smyrna,
Whose Grandmother threatened to burn her;
The girl said, “How could you!”
She answered, “Girl, would you
Believe my own grandma was sterner?

**

There was a Young Lady of Russia,
Who screamed so that no one could hush her;
They summoned the Czar
Who got out of his car
And said, "What? Do I look like an usher?"

**

There was a Young Lady whose eyes,
Were unique as to colour and size;
As to quantity, too.
She had far more than you,
Yet fewer than scallops or flies.

**

There was an Old Man with a beard
Who sat on a horse when he reared;
As he flew through the sky
A swordsman chanced by
And before the man fell he was sheared.

My all-time favorite limerick is "There was a young man from Par-ee," which, while not Lear's, goes like this:

There was a young man from Par-ee
Who was stung on the neck, by a wasp.
When asked if it hurt,
He said, "No, not a lot,
I'm so glad it wasn't a hornet."

Alternate last line: "It can do it again if it likes."

Cheers,
John

[OK, leaving Lear aside now]

I'm Richard the Third. In a crunch,
I murder. I've done that a bunch.
My guess is that I
Will be king when they die,
And I can't help but act on my hunch.

It may strike you as strange, but it's true:
When you breathe you exhale CO2,
And so it might be
That some plant or some tree
Grew a branch from what came out of you.

A potbellied priest told me, “You’re
Possessed by the Devil, for sure.
But your timing’s sublime
’Cause my doctor says I’m
Out of shape and should exorcise more."

That is absolutely brilliant, Roger. It should preface editions of Richard III. :-)

Here's the one French limerick I know:

Il etait un jeune homme de Dijon
Qui n'avait que peu de religion.
Il dit: Quant a moi,
Je deteste les trois:
Le pere, et le fils, et le pigeon.

John

Here are two more theological limericks. There was a - Spectator? - competition won by this:

There once was a man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd,
To think that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no-one about in the quad."

And the following week, they published this anonymous reply:

"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd.
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why this tree
Continues to be,
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."

John

Though most Guinness records, it’s said,
Will not last in the days up ahead,
There’s one that is stable:
Cain’s brother, poor Abel,
Will always be ‘Man Longest Dead.’

While possibly antediluvian,
The Andes are high and Peruvian –
While the poor Appalachians,
Like most of our nation’s
Delights, are a place to be groovy in.

Here's a tongue-twister limerick (as once called for by a Spectator contest):

The myth of Miss Moth whose moth mother
with whispering wings like no other
could lisp major fifths
in pitch-perfect riffs
was smithed with Miss Moth’s misfit brother.