July 2004

I'm managing to improve my rate of limerick production. I've written 14 in the last 3 days. I won't list every one of them here. Once the OEDILF is up and running on its own web space it will be easier to search. In the meantime you can view the current OEDILF collection of limericks here.

Some English words have a variety of meanings. Here are my attempts to show some of the different meanings of age.

When "your age" parents tell you to act
They're just craving conformance, in fact.
They rank you with peers
Based on counting your years,
Regardless of how you react.

We think of our lifetimes in stages
Often badging these stages as ages.
There's the age of consent,
Middle age, then descent
Into paying those ages' back-wages.

An age is a period historical
Like "the Age of [some dude oratorical]."
But, for any one year
What's important's not clear
So it's hard to be that categorical.

A chunk of geological time,
When some life-forms left clues in the slime
All of similar types
Found in strata or stripes --
That's an age served in slices of lime.

My dear, as we age we replace
Many things that we used to embrace.
So I'm planning from now
(You intolerant cow)
To grow old disgracefully, Grace.

I find it somewhat reassuring
That a wine can become more alluring
As it ages. I'd say
I'm improving each day,
But I can't rightly say I'm maturing.

Defining aforesaid was fun. I loved the way the sounds came out.

When you're mooting on matters of crime
(Unlike here, where we're waffling in rhyme)
If you can't use "aforesaid"
Then you're forced to have more said
As you frame the full name every time.

There should be a dictionary entry for flaut. However, this limerick was written to define the word aflaunt.

There was a fair flautist named Anna
Took to lying aflaunt on the pyanna.
Though her flute skills were flawed
Anna's fans all adored
How she flaut in a flirtatious manner.

One more, since it mentions Aaron the Aardvark:

"Ablute" is back-formed from "ablution"
i.e. personal dirt dissolution.
Since our aardvark polluted
Holes where he abluted
'Twas more like dirt redistribution.

View More Limericks

 A few more limericks for the OEDILF:

Aald Aaron the aardvark was achin'
For Aaliyah his wife to aawaken.
He aahem'd as she baasked,
Then aartfully aasked,
Why aaren't we aarth pigs makin' bacon?"

This one was my attempt to squeeze as many ad- words as possible into one limerick:

An addicted adulterous dad
Adopted an admirable lad.
His adjunct adduced,
"each adult dad seduced
Had adored his adoptive dad ad."

AC/DC

Plug in socket's an AC supply
While for DC, then batteries apply.
If your high voltage needs
(For your dirtiest deeds)
are from AC and DC, you're bi.

Her teacher one night after class
Slipped an additive into her glass.
The spike in her drink
Perhaps leads us to think
That his mind's only track was "harass".

Acciaccatura is pronounced ac·CIAC·ca·tu·ra (with the attack on the CHACK).

Each acciaccatura sounds just before
Its principal note in the score.
Played lightly with pace
They ornament with grace,
Too slow, they're a dissonant bore.

Time for a chemistry lesson:

Most actinoids tend to decay
Through radioactivity. They
Are a group most unstable
At the base of the table.
Take notes; Tom will quiz us today.

There's U and Pu and Np,
And there's Th, No and Md...
Actinides, actinoids,
They're just different woids
For the group that begins with Ac.

(If you haven't heard Tom Lehrer's The Elements then your education is lacking.)

If you study acology you're
A student of remedies, for sure.
If you sang in the '80s
About killing Kuwaitis,
You must have discovered "The Cure".

To accumulate means to collect
or to grow over time. I'd expect
I could claim that we nerds
all accumulate words,
and nobody here would object.

The ontologist mused, "this abstractum
Is the thought of a thing, known post factum."
So he abstracted girls
Wearing nothing but pearls
With his idealized self to distract 'em.

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Yes. I've been very busy helping out with the OEDILF project. It
needs its own website and a way to manage the limerick submissions and
editing.

I expect there will be another large influx of contributors over the next few days. The project was written up in the Chicago Sun-Times. If the meme spreads wildly, this is going to be one chaotic management task in the short term.

edit: fixed spelling :(