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From: jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick)
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Subject: Re: Re: Some limericks (A.T. please read)
Message-ID: <2249@mit-hermes.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 10-Dec-84 15:28:37 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-herm.2249
Posted: Mon Dec 10 15:28:37 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 01:48:50 EST
References: <1548@pur-phy.UUCP>, <2245@mit-hermes.ARPA> <157@ahuta.UUCP>
Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 45

> REFERENCES:  <1548@pur-phy.UUCP>, <2245@mit-hermes.ARPA>
> 
> It's hardly fair to criticize A.T. for "his" meter in "his" limericks--the
> limericks he posted have been around since I was in high school!  (That's
> 1964-1968, folks!)
> 
> 					Evelyn C. Leeper
> ==> Note new net address:		...ihnp4!ahuta!ecl
> (Mail sent to my old address will be forwarded temporarily.)

>> There was once a fellow named Fisk
>> Whose fencing was exceedingly brisk
>> So fast was his action
>> That the Fitzgerald contraction
>> Reduced his rapier to a disk.

>> There once was a fellow named Lancelot,
>> Upon whom the neighbors looked askance a lot,

It's absolutely fair. You're right, both of these are classics, but he 
mutilated them. Doesn't a miswritten verse scream out when you try to read it?

The first limerick ought to read:

There once was a fellow named Fisk
Whose fencing was terribly brisk;
 So fast was his action,
 Fitzgerald contraction
Foreshortened his foil to a disk.

And the second limerick should begin:

"There once was a fellow named Lancelot,
Whom people all looked at askance a lot"

Please don't say it doesn't make any difference! Just try reading A.T.'s
versions out loud. 
This one isn't original:

I'm sorry to say there's a man
Whose limericks never quite scan.
 He can never complete
 Any poem with feet--
He said "The trouble is that I always try to get as many words into the
last line as I possibly can!"