Saturday, January 17, 2009

Limericks

I love Limericks. Edward Lear (no relation to King) of “The Owl and the Pussy Cat” fame, was the best known writer of Limericks but the five line verse structure can be traced back to the 14th century. The Uppah Clawss do nawt considah them prawpah powems, you know. Because most of them are of a bawdy nature. The limerick form is complex. Its contents run chiefly to sex. It burgeons with virgins, and masculine urgins and swarms with erotic effex.
That means I can’t print most of them on my blog.

There are of course, some very funny very clever clean ones. There was one that all I could recall was one line. So yesterday Google to the rescue: An Anglican curate in want of a second-hand portable font, would exchange for the same a portrait (in frame) of the Bishop-elect of Vermont. (It actually ran as a classified.)

My brother-in-law, Dan, once owned a book store. His house was and is filled with books anyhow so I guess he figured to be his own best customer. He sometimes bought stock from other bookstores which were going out of business and filled his house even more while he sorted. In one pile I found “A Little Book of Dirty Limericks”. Knowing it would be consigned to the fire, I grabbed it and managed to read one of the verses before my sister grabbed it back, horrified that such a terrible thing would be in her home.

A gay young blade from Khartoum
Took a lesbian up to his room,
And they argued all night
As to which one was right
And who should do what, with what, where and to whom.

This and hundreds more can be found at Naughty Limericks.

3 comments:

  1. My favourite was the time (after Grandma's funeral when we were out at the farm) Uncle Dan started to talk and said "There once was a man..." We were all waiting for it to be a limerick. It wasn't. We were heartbroken.

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  2. My personal favourite concerns a young lady from the provincial capital of ontario.

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  3. The one on whom it was difficult to maintain ones grip?

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