On Wed, 23 May 2012 09:23:51 +1000, Peter Moylan
<inv...@peter.pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> On May 22, 3:36 pm, Jerry Avins <
j...@ieee.org> wrote:
>>> On 5/22/2012 12:45 PM, Don Phillipson wrote:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> But Racine knew also (1) that strictly uniform rhythm becomes oppressive
>>>> and tedious and (2) one swallow does not make a summer, although I
>>>> have forgotten how the French might say this. What he has in common
>>>> with Shakespeare is the emphasis on stress rather than vowel length
>>>> (as in Latin verse) so that Racine and Shakespeare were equally flexible
>>>> in welcoming extra unstressed syllables to avoid the plonking monotony
>>>> of uniform rhythm.
>>> There was a young man of Japan
>>> Whose limericks never would scan.
>>> When told this was so
>>> He replied, "Yes, I know.
>>> But I always try to cram as many syllables into the last
>>> line as ever I possible can."
>>
>> Likewise:
>>
>> A decrepit old gas man named Peter,
>> While hunting around for the meter,
>> Touched a leak with his light.
>> He arose out of sight,
>> And, as anyone can see by reading this, he also destroyed the meter.
>
>That had me puzzled for a minute or so. It's possibly the first limerick
>I've seen that works in AmE but is totally obscure in BrE.
It's a pretty modest payback for the one about the
halisbury-scalisbury curate who wandered round Hampshire...
--
Mike.