Lulu LaBonne at Earwig Sandwich threw out this first line for a limerick… A Lady With Bichons In Brittany…
It was intended, I’m certain, as a term of endearment for French Fancy , but of course I couldn’t resist finishing it, me being a Limerick Whore.
I got busy, and came up with this:
A Lady with Bichons in Brittany
sang praises about them in litany.
As she finished her list,
Her Frise she kissed,
then shouted, “The Bichon has bitten me!”
I have great hopes that I have not insulted French Fancy with my fiddling.
The rest of you, stop that groaning noise. Just stop it!
I do have my mother to blame for my gift. It’s all her fault. She initiated me at a very tender age by throwing out first lines of limericks, then prompting me through the process of finding just the right words to fit the rhyme. I am now helpless in the face of an unrealized limerick.
This got me to thimking, and I have decided to allow a never before seen glimpse into the mental workings of a Limerick Whore (sic).
Here’s my secret…The Name Game. You know… Shirley, Shirly bo Birley, banana fanna fo Firly, fee fi fo Mirley. Shirley. A little trick with Nick…
Well, not exactly the name game, but the Alphabet Game. I made up that name, the Alphabet Game, but that’s what I’m calling it.
Use as example, the word Brittany. I have to come up with all the possible rhymes for Brittany, because I will need two rhymes for the limerick, and the best way I know to find the rhymes is to drop the first letter of Brittany and substitute, in order, each letter of the alphabet.
Inside my head sounds like, “Crittany, Dittany, Frittany, Gittany, Hittany, Jittany, Kittany, Littany… all the way to Zittany. Yes, in some rhymes I drop the “b” and the “r” in Brittany, but it’s a limerick. Don’t be too hard on me. (Thimk homonym-ish)
The words dittany and litany jumped out. I wikied “dittany”, knowing vaguely that it was an herb of certain properties, and I was hoping those properties were something serious, like hemlock, so that it would have impact in the limerick. Not so. Dittany proved to be relatively mild. I put “dittany” to the side for a later, more desperate consideration.
“Litany” popped out at me straight away, but I still needed one other word to rhyme with Brittany, and no other from the list stood out.
Not a problem. I would ignore finding another rhyme for Brittany at this point, and go on to the next two lines.
Ignore-ance is a great way to deal with problem solving, I have found.
The next two lines only have to rhyme with themselves. How easy is that? And I find it a good place to weave the limerick back on itself, using synonyms for Brittany and litany, as it were.
I wanted to include a rhyme in those lines with the nicely syllabled word “Frise”, which is the other half of the name of the dog breed… Bichon Frise, but you just go ahead and try the Alphabet Game on that word.
My mind said to my mind, “Give me another word for litany.” It gave me litany = list. “People who own those cute little white fluffy dogs surely list their positive attributes, as in litany. “
See how this thing writes itself? I thought you would.
The word “list” needed a turn with The Alphabet Game. “Bist, cist, dist, fist, gist, hist, jist, kist… Aha! Kissed!!”
Per-fect! (Again, thimk homonym-ish)
People who own little dogs are usually fond of kissing them. And sometimes they kiss the wrong dog at the wrong time, and, voila… bitten me = Brittany.
That solved my need for another rhyme for Brittany. (Told you it writes itself)
Then you make the all the syllables into a proper limerick cadence.
And there you have it.
Now, go practice, children.
No. Do not alert the authorities as to my mental stability.
There once was a looney named Leslie…
Leslie
PS I not only use the Alphabet Game for making limericks. As my age advances, and my wits leave me, I forget names on a regular basis. I can often prompt my memory of a name by quickly running through the alphabet, and pausing on each letter, until it triggers the name.
So when they finally commit me to the ‘home’, and you come to visit, and I am sitting there singing the “ABC” song to myself, I am just trying to remember your name… banana fanna fo fanna.
Or I could just be jamming out in my head on “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”.
