{"id":2862,"date":"2009-07-07T20:15:43","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T00:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2862"},"modified":"2021-05-13T09:53:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T13:53:28","slug":"limericks-limited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2862","title":{"rendered":"Limericks limited"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the last couple days,<\/strong> as some of you know, I\u2019ve posted limericks on my Facebook page. I\u2019ve done this because I couldn\u2019t think of a mortal thing to say about my life that could possibly be of interest to anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hasten to add that I\u2019m talking clean <\/i>limericks here. My favorite limericks come from a collection of light verse that was in my childhood home (all decent). I did not learn about the scrofulous mass of the genre until I was a grown-up. According to Wikipedia<\/a>, the experts say that \u201cthe true limerick as a folk form is always obscene.\u201d I have no standing to challenge the experts, but the limericks I like are the ones that are clean and clever. Some marvelous effects have been achieved by geniuses (some of them anonymous) who used the form to create what seems to me transcendent nonsense. (I do not include Edward Lear in this group. I hate Lear\u2019s limericks. His technique of repeating the first-line rhyme in the final line, in my opinion, destroys the very things that make limericks wonderful.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve quoted this one by Oliver Wendell Holmes in this space before:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said a great Congregational preacher
To a hen, \u201cYou\u2019re a beautiful creature.\u201d
And the hen, just for that,
Laid an egg in his hat,
And thus did the Hen reward Beecher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple more, by the greatest genius of all\u2014\u201cAnonymous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a young lady of Woosester
Who usest to crow like a roosester;
She usest to climb
Two trees at a time,
But her sisester usest to boosester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A beautiful lady named Psyche
Is loved by a fellow named Yche.
One thing about Ych
The lady can\u2019t lych
Is his beard, which is dreadfully spyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I call those pure genius. Not only are they funny, but they parody the very language in which they\u2019re written. I love English, but it can be a very silly language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But my point (such as it is) is this: I think we\u2019ll never see that kind of inspired piffle again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a time, long ago, when I used to write humor for (a little) money. I sold maybe a half dozen pieces to the Wittenburg Door<\/a>. I specialized in very stupid puns. I loved to salt two or three horrible puns in every piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe I was able to do that because I had a boring job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was working in shipping and mailing at the time, and much of my work involved long periods of repetitious behaviors. After repeating the same motions a few thousand times, I was pretty much able to do this work without any brain engagement at all. My mind floated free, and I\u2019d often fix on a word that showed up in a newsletter I was inserting, or in an address on a label. And I\u2019d find a way to use that word in a pun. Then I\u2019d stop, make a note of the pun, and take it home to the plastic container where I stored my gags, to eventually (perhaps) be incorporated into a Door <\/i>piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I\u2019m saying, my children, was that this was back in the days when lots of stuff which we now do electronically still got done by hand. Today, not only do computers make our work less repetitive, less likely to induce that fugue state where puns are born, but we find ways to avoid being alone with our own thoughts at all. If I were doing that kind of work today, I\u2019d have earphones on, and I\u2019d be listening to music or talk radio instead of exploring my right brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing you learn when you\u2019re a historical reenactor is how long everything used to take in the old days. Life involved long walks, extended periods of repetitive work, and (often) quiet environments. It was in such circumstances, I think, that verbal pyrotechnics were born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If any verbal brilliance gets produced in our time, it\u2019ll probably come from the Third World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the last couple days, as some of you know, I\u2019ve posted limericks on my Facebook page. I\u2019ve done this because I couldn\u2019t think of a mortal thing to say about my life that could possibly be of interest to anyone. I hasten to add that I\u2019m talking clean limericks here. My favorite limericks come … Continue reading Limericks limited<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,17],"tags":[1669],"class_list":["post-2862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-limericks"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15371,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2862\/revisions\/15371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}