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6 comments

Hinermad

Diana,

It took me a few seconds (maybe about seven) to make sense of the “used to hate to watch golf” statement, but I’m happy to say I got it before I read your explanation. Oh, what a teacher!

I’ve had the same experience. I used to not care for Lindsey Buckingham, guitarist for Fleetwood Mack. It just never looked like he was working very hard when he played. Then I tried to learn to play guitar myself, and I eventually realized that it takes a LOT of work to make it look easy. I respect Mr. B’s skill a lot more now.

Limericks. I don’t know any other verse forms that have been so widely used, in everything from children’s rhymes to very adult jokes. I’m glad you’re giving your cadets a chance to learn about them.

Heck, I’m just glad you’re helping to keep the language alive.

Dave

08/26/06 @ 07:22
Comment from:

Hey, Dave. :)

Honestly, it didn’t cross my mind that they might NOT know what a limerick is. I was appalled, horrified and baffled all at once, at a loss to even explain. Plus I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head to even give them an example. I was left stammering incoherently and drooling gently on myself for a few there. But I recovered.

I think I’ll try my own assignment. (I urge you to give it a shot.)

There once was a woman named Dottie
Who coached her cat in karate
The feline flipped
And sloppily slipped
And planted her pelt in the potty.

That’s a ten-minute effort. It’s an easy assignment.

d

08/26/06 @ 09:23
Comment from: Jeff
Jeff

Hmm.. Although I “knew” what a limerick was (dirty little ditty), I guess I hadn’t been told the “rules,” nor did I just recognize them. I also know what allteriation is, but I guess I didn’t know that was part of the rule. Or is that rule just part of your assignment?

There had been a hacker named Hank
Who tried to tighten his code like a tank
He typed in a tizzy
Until he dropped dizzy
His keys stuck shooting off Zees.

I think that last line is weak. That’s why I write in code, I guess.

Better (?) from my server’s login greeting (random bits provided by the program “fortune"):

There was a young man of Cape Horn
Who wished he had never been born,
And he wouldn’t have been
If his father had seen
That the end of the rubber was torn.

08/28/06 @ 11:51
hinermad

A limerick’s lovely for learning
cadets to try poetry’s turning.
But us coders, we cry,
when the Captain comes by -
though we thought, we’ve not written a durned thing.

(It’s been a busy weekend.)

Dave

08/28/06 @ 12:53
Comment from:

Not bad, guys! (Jeff…your last limerick lacks alliteration, babe. But it’s fun, anyway. :))

I think my department head is coming to my class tomorrow, when the cadets bring in their limericks to share. Wheeee. That’ll be fun. ;)

I just hope they wrote with their audience (me!) firmly in mind.

d

08/28/06 @ 18:58
Comment from: Jeff
Jeff

Yeah, I didn’t write the last one. It’s a sample from my login message of the day…it greets me with taudry tidbits. It does show the “usual” limerick one may encounter. You know; “there once was a man from Nantucket…”

08/29/06 @ 11:20