Hello. I'm Gill at engVid, and today we have a lesson on a particular type of comic poem,
which is called a limerick. Okay? So, these are some examples of limericks, and they're
a very popular form of poem. They're usually very simple; they're not, like, difficult
poetry that's hard to understand. They usually tell a story and it's usually quite funny;
sometimes it's a bit crazy, kind of what you call nonsense poetry. It doesn't really make
sense, but it's funny anyway. So, okay.
So, to begin with the first example, it's a nursery rhyme, which is the kind of poem
that children learn and listen to as they're children in the nursery where they're... When
people used to have big houses, they would have one room which was called the nursery
and they put their children in there, and they might have somebody to look after the
children, like a nanny or a nurse. And... As well as the mother and father, the children
would have other people to help to look after them and bring them up, and make food for
them, and so on. That's if they were rich.
But also children of all sorts. I remember, as a child, hearing nursery rhymes, and my
mother especially telling me nursery rhymes. And the fun thing about them is that they
have a rhythm and a rhyme, so there's a pattern, which children enjoy hearing the pattern of
the rhythm and the rhyming of the ends of the lines. So, here's a nursery rhyme which
you may have heard. Perhaps you have a version of it in your own language, if English isn't
your first language. So, some of the words don't really make sense because they're more
to do with imitating the sound of a clock ticking. So, here we go:
Hickory dickory dock The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one The mouse ran down
So, it's... It's a clock, there's a mouse. The mouse goes up the clock, the clock chimes
one: "Dong", and because of that, the mouse is frightened and runs down again. And then
that's it - that's all that happens, but it's quite fun for children to hear that. So, you
can see that there's a pattern, there: "dock" and "clock" rhyme, and then we have "dock"
again. So, if we use a sort of letter form of rhyme scheme, you can label that A, like
that. That's rhyme A. And then one is... Doesn't rhyme, so that's B. "One" and... Usually...
Usually the third and fourth lines rhyme. These don't exactly rhyme, but they're a little
bit similar. "One" and "down", and it's sort of what's called a half rhyme. So, it's a
kind of... You could call it B again, really, or B with a little one on it just to show
it's slightly different. But, anyway, this is... This sort of shows what the pattern
is: A, A, B, B, A is the rhyme pattern for a limerick.
And, also, the first two lines and the fifth lines are usually a bit longer than the lines
three and four. So: "Hickory dickory dock, The mouse ran up the clock" so that's, like,
three strong beats. "Hickory dickory dock, The mouse ran up the clock". But then we've
got: "The clock struck one", so that's only two strong beats. "The clock struck one, The
mouse ran down, Hickory dickory dock". So, it's
that sort of rhythm; 3, 3, 2, 2, 3. So, that kind of pattern of rhythm and rhyme you find
So, I hope you... I mean, "Hickory dickory dock", that's just imitating the sound of
the clock. So, don't worry about: "What are those words? What do they mean?" They don't
really mean anything, but the mouse-little animal-ran up the clock - it's a clock up
on the wall, so... Or it's a clock... Big, tall clock that stands on the floor, so a
"The clock struck one". "To strike"... "To strike" is when the clock chimes. To strike;
to chime. If it goes: "Ding" or "Bong", anything like that, one sound to show that it's one
o'clock; it just makes one single sound for one o'clock. "The clock struck one". Usually
strikes because it's hitting something inside to make that sound. "The mouse ran down, Hickory
dickory dock". So that's... That's it. Okay. So, that illustrates the pattern.
And then we have an example from the 19th century. If you've seen another lesson that
I did called: "The Owl and the Pussycat", you might remember the name of the poet, Edward
Lear, who wrote a lot of funny poetry. He wrote a lot of limericks and other funny,
sort of nonsense poetry, which it is quite... Quite strange, but entertaining. So, this
one also you'll see it fits the pattern, and this is about an old man with a big, long
beard. And in the 19th century, in the U.K., in Britain, a lot of men had long beards;
it was the fashion in those days for men to have very long beards. Sometimes they would
be shorter beards, but sometimes they would have a beard right down to here. So, this
is about one of those men. So:
There was an old man with a beard Who said "It is just as I feared!" (I'll explain
that word in a minute). Two owls and a hen, (these are birds; owl
and a hen, they're birds). Two owls and a hen,
Four larks and a wren, (those are also birds - lark, wren).
Have all built their nests in my beard!
Okay, so let me just explain the maybe unfamiliar words. "The old man has a beard, He said 'It
is just as I feared!'" He was worried that something might happen. Fear. To fear or to
be... To be afraid of something. He had a fear that something would happen; he was afraid
that something would happen. And you can see that it's nonsense, really, because who would
be afraid that birds would start to live in somebody's beard? Okay. Anyway.
"Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren, Have all built their nests in my beard!" So,
the nest... The bird's nest is what they build when they lay eggs. So, if... If the bird
lays its eggs, it needs to have a nest, usually made of little twigs, and leaves, and things
put together. And the birds often build the nests themselves. So, they built their nests
So, how many is that? Two owls and a hen, that's three birds; four larks and a wren,
that's another five birds, so that's eight. Eight birds have all built their nests in
my beard. So, he's got eight nests in his beard, and maybe each nest contains at least
three eggs... So, shall we say an average of four eggs? I've drawn five eggs, here.
If we say an average of four eggs per nest... Four times eight - 32.
So, when those eggs... When the little baby birds come out of the eggs, can you imagine
what it would be like? So when you start to think logically: "What is going to happen
next?" It's not just, you know, some... It's not even just eight birds; it's eight nests
and lots of eggs, maybe 32 eggs, which are going to come out. They're going to hatch.
If the egg hatches, it breaks, and the little baby bird comes out of it. So, that would
be quite a... Something to watch. Okay.
So, you can see what a sort of nonsense poem it is; it's just not possible that that could
happen, but it's funny. It's just funny. So, that different kinds of birds would just build
their nests in his beard. Okay. So, if you haven't seen my other lesson with Edward Lear,
"The Owl and the Pussycat", he seemed to like to mention owls for some reason. So, have
a look at "The Owl and the Pussycat" poem, if you haven't already seen it. Okay.
And then, finally, we have an example of a limerick which actually breaks one of the
rules; the rule of the rhythm and the... The idea of having three strong beats, and two
strong beats, depending on which line it is. And those beats... This word "scan" is about
that. "To scan", it means it has to have the correct rhythm; it can't sort of go wrong.
It has to have a strong beat on a regular... On a regular basis. So, if it doesn't scan...
If a poem doesn't scan, it doesn't really sound right. It needs to have the right rhythm.
Okay.
So, this limerick, it actually only breaks the rule in the last line. So, it follows
the rule for the first four lines. It follows the rhyming rule and the rhythm rule, but
it's just in the last line that it goes wrong, but it's quite funny the way it does that.
So:
There was a young man from Japan Whose limericks never would scan.
And when they asked why, ("they" being just other people; when people asked why).
He said 'I do try!' (So up to here it's all fine, but then we've got the last line, here).
But when I get to the last line I try to fit in as many words as I possibly can.
So, even... That does rhyme with "scan" and "Japan", but you can see how it's far too
long to fit the usual rule of the rhythm. But it's funny because the subject is that
he couldn't scan; he couldn't get his limericks to scan, because: "when I get to the last
line I try to fit in as many words as I possibly can".
Okay, so there are two examples of limericks which follow the rules, and one example that
shows how you can break the rules. You can have one that breaks the rhyming rule, and
you could have no rhyming at all at the ends, and that also will sound funny; it will make
people laugh simply because it breaks that rule of rhyming.
Okay, so I wonder if you might be interested in trying to write a limerick of your own,
and have a try; and if you succeed, post it in the comments section of the engVid website
- www.engvid.com comments. We will also have a quiz on there, so look out for that, too.
Okay? And we're looking forward to seeing all your limericks, so have fun with it. Okay,