The limerick?

There once was a form made for those

Who found it more fun than mere prose;

Limerick was its name,

But it never found fame,

But why? It’s so fun! Oh, who knows?

All right, so the limerick was never quite up there in literary circles’ highest echelons, so I can’t really lament its fall from grace too much because, well, it was never really in grace. It never caught on in the same way as the sonnet, the haiku or, y’know, just talking normally. But when it was invented (by Thomas Aquinas, supposedly), it had so much promise.

It was the next big thing, the world was told. It would replace iambic pentameter. There were even talks of a limerick translation of The Bible – ultimately scrapped due to its brevity:

In the story of young Jesus Christ,

Maybe three lines will suffice:

He was born and He died

(Indeed, crucified)

But He came back to life, which was nice.

But like Peter Cook to follow, the limerick’s comic talent was consigned to obscenity – making it funnier to some. Sadly, I can’t give examples here. This column doesn’t lend itself to the story of the man from Nantucket.

Thankfully, the internet is bringing about a comeback, in the form of ‘anti-limericks’ such as the following:

There once was a man from Japan

Whose limericks just wouldn’t scan;

When asked why this was,

He answered, “Because

I always cram as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can.”

With your help, we can give limericks the publicity they deserve. And for those of you don’t know how to write one, here’s a handy template:

There once was an X from place B,

That satisfied predicate P,

He or she did thing A,

In an adjective way,

Resulting in circumstance C.

Happy limericking.