Word: limerick
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sighs. The Gulfwins, it appears, disbanded three years ago when the number of contests decreased. Contests, as opposed to sweepstakes, she is quick to explain, require skill-finishing a limerick, supplying the correct answers, coining a phrase. For some years now they have been losing ground to sweepstakes, a degenerate form in which the judging agency simply draws the winning entry from a bag of mail. True contesters, like Mrs. Haley, look down on sweepstakes. "There are no skill contests left. It's driving me nuts," she says. Most of what Mrs. Haley wins she sells at half price...
...same issue, an Education story about a limerick contest staged by Connecticut's Mohegan Community College ("A Rich Orgy of Witty Ditties") brought in a batch of limericks in reply. Some readers claimed that the contest limericks did not scan. But most scolded Limerick Judge Isaac Asimov for his assertion that in limerick writing, "women tend to be dirtier but less clever than men." Countered Reader Margaret Mitchell Dukore of Kaneohe, Hawaii...
...response to Limerick Judge Isaac Asimov's comment that "women tend to be dirtier but less clever than men" [April 24], I offer the following observation: The ladies endeavored with zest, The limerick prize to contest
Although the limerick form appears in few prosody handbooks, Asimov followed strict, traditional rules. Limericks must have five lines. The first, second and fifth lines must all rhyme, while the third and fourth follow another rhyme (a,a,b,b,a). There are 13 feet, or stressed syllables, to the limerick-no more, no less. The typical foot is an anapest, that is, two unstressed syllables preceding an accented one (da-da-DAH), or sometimes an iamb...
...complete story must be told in 34 to 49 syllables. Asimov likes them to be not only clever but also a bit vulgar. "Clean limericks lack flavor-like vanilla ice cream or pound cake," he claims. "They are perfectly edible but, to my taste, are tame, flat and unsatisfying." Nonetheless, Asimov awarded first prize to this limerick by George Vaill, retired secretary of Yale University...