…and the wonderful world of Limericks

• The pattern the words and syllables make
• “The beat”
• Made up of unstressed and stressed syllables
• Unstressed syllables are marked with a small “u” and stressed syllables are marked with a “/”

• Also known as “feet”
• One Iamb is one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable
• NOT ALL RHYTHMS USE IAMBS!!!

• Words that have similar ending sounds
• Near rhymes usually have a similar vowel sound - orange & porridge

• The order in which the last word in each line of a stanza rhyme with other last words in each line of the stanza
• Marked by lower-cased letters (same letter=rhyming words)

• Five-line poem
• Humorous and usually crude
• First published in Ireland in the 1840s
• Rhythm: u//u//u// - u//u//u// - u//u/ - u//u/ u//u//u// OR u/uu/uu/ - u/uu/uu/ - u/uu/ u/uu/ - u/uu/uu/
• Rhyme scheme: aabba

Hickory, dikory, dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
The mouse ran down
Hickory, dikory, dock

There was an old man from Peru, u/uu/uu/ who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
u/uu/uu/
He awoke in the night u/uu/ with a terrible fright, u/uu/ and found out that it was quite true.
u/uu/uu/

A limerick writer of wonder u//u//u//
Pens humor he brews from Down Under.
u//u//u//
When he sends a zinger u//u//
His joke seems to linger u//u//
Exploding like lightening and thunder.
u//u//u//