Clerihews

Post by **Alatar** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:31 pm

Spotted this on "Word of the Day" and thought it could be a fun game!

clerihew \KLAIR-ih-hyoo\ noun

: a light verse quatrain rhyming aabb and usually dealing with a person named in the initial rhyme

Example sentence:
My favorite of Edmund C. Bentley's clerihews is the following: "What I like about Clive / Is that he is no longer alive. / There is a great deal to be said / For being dead."

To play, just compose one for the preceding poster! In this case, me...

Post by **axordil** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:53 pm

Alatar's verse
Could always be worse
If set to a tune
Played by a bassoon.

Post by **vison** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:42 pm

Axordil's pants
Were favoured by chance
As he leapt o'er the fire
In his m00tiful dance.

A Kind Friend has pointed out that my rhyme scheme is "aaba" when it oughter be "aabb", so here is the Correct Verse:

Axordil's pants
Were favoured by chance
As he leapt o'er the blaze
Creating amaze.

Pooh.

The first one is superior but incorrect.

Arrrggghhhh.

Post by **yovargas** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:50 pm

psssst...vison...that's 'aaba' not 'aabb'.

Post by **vison** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 5:50 pm

yovargas wrote:psssst...vison...that's 'aaba' not 'aabb'.

Thanx. I shall amend it. A True Poet, such as I am myself, is not troubled by such mundane requirements. It is, in other words, a mere nothing in the way of effort for me to change it.

Post by **Ellienor** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 8:32 pm

Vison's rhymes
having incorrect lines,
Are an uncommon mistake,
Of an intellect great.

Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:02 am

Ellie is fine
Though her profession is mine
I can't think of a better lawyer
To hang out with in the foyer.

Post by **The Watcher** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:19 am

Voronwë is a dear
and his prose is always clear.
But his attempts at rhyme
are not the best use of his time.

:D

now I am asking for it!

Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:20 am

now I am asking for it!

Post by **baby tuckoo** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:25 am

Ah, yes. The Clerihew, a staple of bar room poetry for centuries. Thanks god it allows for irregular meter. But it does require a well-known person whose name forms one of the rhymes, preferrably the first.

Invented by Edmund Clerihew Bently, who, while in school listening to a chemistry lecture, wrote:

Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

Close cousin to the limerick. But, let's follow form, people.

PEOPLE!!!!!!!

Post by **narya** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:27 am

Quietly, the Watcher waits
Then slips into the debates
Where her feats spectacular
Have entered the vernacular

EDIT TO ADD: I finished this before the chastisement, and I like it just the way it is.

Post by **baby tuckoo** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:37 am

Posted elsewhere, for reasons you'll run across:

Prim blue Iguana,
Reptile madonna,
Punctilious miss is
Debating ellipsis.

Post by **Old_Tom_Bombadil** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:45 am

baby tuckoo
flew to Catmandu
while he was there
he lost all his hair

Post by **MithLuin** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:09 am

Old Tom Bombadil
is a merry fellow.
Bright blue his jacket is
And his boots are yellow.

I don't care if it's abcb - it's perfect!

(what rhymes with "Bombadil?" anyway?)

Discovering sodium is kinda cool. But I have a bone to pick with whoever invented sulfur. Turns out that when you heat it with copper, it sticks to the glass test tubes! [And now you know what I was doing after school today!]

Old Tom Bombadil
would not hurt a daffodil
except to pluck it for his lady
the fair Goldberry.

Not surprisingly, I like Tolkien's better

.

Post by **baby tuckoo** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:25 am

*Is horrified by both the chemistry and the verse. Is drunk too*

Post by **Jnyusa** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:36 am

What a wonderful mnemonic aid for the names of dead people who appear on multiple choice tests!

Jn

Post by **BrianIsSmilingAtYou** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:34 am

I'll have to think about writing a clerihew or two about posters here, but the following are a sample of other clerihews I have written:

Famed director Woody Allen
drinks his liquor by the gallon.
Hopes his jokes in folksy Yiddish
will be welcomed by the British.

Thomas Aquinas
was known for his dryness.
He learned to be moister
with nuns in the cloister.

Smiling Buddha
smells of gouda,
likes to balance balls of cheese
on his knees.

Alexander Graham Bell
spends the afterlife in Hell.
When he wants some time alone--
Watson calls him on the phone.

Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón
could barely say his name while talking on the phone.
So it's fitting indeed that the Alamo fell
before he could earn the revenge of Ma Bell.

Principal Skinner
thought Patty was thinner--
or was it the other?
He lives with his mother.

Aristotle
hit the bottle,
wrote a treatise
praising Thetis.

Bertrand Russell
pulled a muscle
writing Principia:
could he be wimpia?

Lou Costello,
what a fellow:
died to break the Abbott
habit.

Mother Superior's
nunnish inferiors
feared the old bag:
God, what a hag!

Forrest Gump
what a chump:
eating shrimp
with the gimp.

BrianIs

AtYou

Post by **Jnyusa** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:50 am

Brian, those are among the best laughs I've had all day.

Jn

Post by **Primula Baggins** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 9:00 am

Brian, those made me very happy that this board exists.

Some people have to pay money for that quality of verbal entertainment.

Post by **Jnyusa** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 9:07 am

We never pay money. We just drive by in a black limousine, grab people like Brian off the street, put them in ankle cuffs, then make them sit at a computer keyboard uploading their wit and wisdom into the Hall of Fire.

And all they get in exchange is a potholder.

Jn