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#100500 04/10/2003 10:36 AM
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A combination of sympathy for a friend's ill-health and today's 'Word a Day' inspired me to pen my own clerihew:

Ian Martin
Has done with partyin'
He now wisely eschews
The insidious effects of booze

I didn't think it was too bad for a first effort...


#100501 04/10/2003 11:14 AM
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dxb Offline
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Welcome helendq, I think that's excellent. As far as I can see (I shall probably be torn apart for this) yours is this board's first post on Clerihews, which I find amazing. It's a pity you didn't post it up under 'Wordplay and fun' or 'Miscellany'; unfortunately, many peoples eyes often don't drop down the Index this far. I think Coffeebean in particular would enjoy playing with Clerihews.

CB,....you there? Let's give it a bit and see what happens.


#100502 04/11/2003 4:51 AM
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I'm here, but had too busy a day to come up with one. But!! I have picked up the glove, dxb!

Welcome, helendq!


#100503 04/11/2003 5:03 PM
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old hand
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German composer Paul Hindemith left
the Nazi regime not entirely bereft;
His repertoire is smaller
but you may recognize Mathis der Maler.



#100504 04/11/2003 9:49 PM
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old hand
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American author Mark Twain
had a brain of a singular strain;
but his style so witty, dry and direct
would unfortunately now be “politically incorrect.”



#100505 04/12/2003 3:49 AM
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old hand
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William of Normandy in 1066
brought his law and culture to the Celts and Picts.
And not without hassles,
Built a lot of castles.


#100506 04/12/2003 12:38 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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Gluttonous Henry the Eighth
Wrought a departure of faith,
And to his wives as a Tudor
He couldn't be ruder.


#100507 04/12/2003 12:46 PM
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HelenDQ,
Her first post a clerihew,
Hurrah, she's begun,
And her posting can only add to the fun!


#100508 04/12/2003 1:27 PM
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Politically correct
Ist
Kot und Dreck.


#100509 04/13/2003 1:17 AM
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Highly acclaimed Thomas Edison
Many failed ideas did jettison,
Then finally to his delight
He perfected the incandescent light.


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Jones (Cathy Zeta) didn’t say “Hello”.
She felt violated, we know.
It was OK to picture that bash;
For cash.


The engineer James Watt,
Watched a boiling pot.
He thought, “Will steam lift the lid?”
It did.





#100511 04/15/2003 1:32 AM
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old hand
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Yo Yo Ma, clever fellow,
makes his living playing cello;
Just a $lice
would be nice.


#100512 04/15/2003 1:52 AM
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>Just a $lice

Coffeebean, to be replete
creates a rhyme that is concrete,
in addition to
a clerihew.


#100513 04/15/2003 6:05 AM
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Orlando Bloom, he leaves me smiling.
As Legolas, he's quite beguiling.
from forest glen to elvin home,
he flitters on through Tolkein's tome.

Ella Fitzgerald, her voice a bright note,
sang high and low straight from her throat.
The lady sang jazz
with a lot of pizzaz.

Jonathan Edwards, a preacher
said that God knew every creature.
and pictured sinners in God's ire,
dangling very close to fire.


#100514 04/15/2003 7:31 AM
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stranger
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HelenDQ, novice of A.Word.A.Day,
Posted a clerihew to enter the fray.
Which replies made her laugh, do you suppose,
So that tea came out of her nose?


#100515 04/15/2003 4:13 PM
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Musick is all
about how the sounds fall
the newbies must be wonderin'
what the *feck am I blubberin'

Claire and Hugh'll
go *down by the pool
it's a personal infer
as to *where down does refer

Welcome! AWAD rookies
sit down, have a cookie.
I'm enjoying the spew
of applied clerihew.


#100516 04/15/2003 4:21 PM
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Sir Isaac Newton: scientist,
philosopher and alchemist,
from an apple’s inspiration
gave us the law of gravitation.




#100517 04/28/2003 5:24 PM
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Robespierre, dreaming of man’s evolution,
Fueled the fires of the French Revolution
With a guillotine.
Very mean.



#100518 04/29/2003 2:24 PM
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dxb Offline
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Nice one CB!

PAINKILLER:

Elitist Jacobin, Jean Paul Marat,
Favoured the rise of the meritocrat.
While bathing his aches away
He met Charlotte Corday.



#100519 04/29/2003 11:03 PM
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Canadian General Sam Hill
invented odd gadgets at will.
But his orders soon got so batty
His troops said "What the Sam Hill was that, eh?"

(High school memory of his invention of the shovel with a hole in it that could also be used as a shield while advancing on the enemy.)



#100520 04/30/2003 6:37 AM
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Interesting, Zed. I've heard the expression but never really wondered about it. Now I have some clues! Thanks for that learning experience!


#100521 04/30/2003 7:13 AM
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My thanks also, Zed. I've heard the expression, but always assumed Sam Hill was a mock euphemism for hell. It never occurred to me that there was actually a Sam Hill being commemorated.

Bingley


Bingley
#100522 04/30/2003 8:57 PM
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Out of twenty-two poems posted in this thread so far, I count eight legitimate clerihews. Y'all's homework assignment is to identify them. Extra credit will be given for anyone fixing the fourteen that aren't clerihews.


#100523 04/30/2003 10:40 PM
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Is that why I had to work so hard to keep it from turning into a limerick?


#100524 04/30/2003 10:50 PM
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Well, the clerihew is AABB and the limerick is AABBA so you just have to leave off the last line. The rhythmic pattern of a clerihew is non-existent. In fact not sticking to any pattern is encouraged. This also means that you could just as well come up with a limerick without the last line:

An aspiring young poet named Zed
Took it into her pretty young head
To dash off some lines
And put them on signs.

It's the first line that kills most of them. Mine just snuck under the wire.


#100525 04/30/2003 11:06 PM
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Our free lance fool
cites a rule,
while liberties he takes
and like me, the spirit, he breaks!

Of Troy,
never one to be coy-
struts her stuff!
(well, one more is enough!)


#100526 05/01/2003 12:06 AM
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Higgledy-piggledy
Ludwig van Beethoven
Bored by requests for some
Music to hum,

Finally answered with
Oversimplicity
"Here's my Fifth Symphony:
Duh, duh, duh, DUM!"

~~
rules to be found here:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T2E112764

Post Edit:

Oops Thanks, dxb and eta!



#100527 05/01/2003 9:18 AM
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Editor of note (but quiet) AnnaSt
Said, “Look, I can out-double the rest.”
Her verses were strophic, but as for her URL in deepest pink.
Dud link.





#100528 05/01/2003 9:27 AM
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our hero d-x-b,
discovered what we all would see,
that in her effort to double,
Anna also doubled the http.



AABB edit
our hero d-x-b,
discovered what we all would see,
that in her effort to double,
Anna's http was twice the trouble.


formerly known as etaoin...
#100529 05/02/2003 1:01 AM
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Prolific poster Coffeebean
Came onboard and caused a scene.
She said punishingly "Try a Tom Swifty."
I'm addicted (ain't crossthreading nifty)


#100530 05/02/2003 8:21 PM
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You all are too nice! [blushing-aw-shucks]


#100531 05/02/2003 8:23 PM
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old hand
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So Faldage --

Are you going to use your red pencil and tell us where we went wrong? I thought it was safe down here in Weekly Themes . . .


#100532 05/02/2003 9:57 PM
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where we went wrong

The first line in a clerihew is either a person's name or ends in a person's name.

Since there are so few restrictions on the clerihew, it seems a small thing to ask that the name be involved in the rhyme.


#100533 05/02/2003 10:06 PM
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Oh, I thought it just had to contain the person's name. Oh well.


#100534 05/02/2003 10:08 PM
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Lucy Van Pelt, of Peanuts ® fame,
Would coax Charlie Brown into a football game,
And every time – it never failed – she'd withdraw the ball,
He’d fall.



#100535 05/02/2003 10:23 PM
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contain the person's name

Digging into it more deeply I discover that Anu seems to have been of the laxer school in his definition. Others seem more or less strict in the matter, some appearing to indicate that the first line be nothing but the person's name, one noting merely that the first line contain the person's name and the second line rhyme with the person's (which would seem to require that the pe4rson's name end the first line, but not necessarily) and some even allowing the name to be in the second line. As you so aptly put it, "Oh well."


#100536 05/02/2003 10:45 PM
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Aw shucks. I was waiting on a ruling as to whether or not "Hugh'll" *counted.


#100537 05/03/2003 12:16 AM
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>a ruling as to... "Hugh'll"

I suspect that's why I came up with nine (9) instead of eight (8).


#100538 05/17/2003 5:12 PM
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old hand
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For dxb

Napoleon Bonaparte,
Of things military, very smart;
He overthrew the royalists when he organized a coup,
But was overthrown himself at Waterloo.


#100539 05/19/2003 11:50 AM
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That's neat Cb (In the true meaning as well as US colloquial). I guess I can only try this:

Wellesley, Arthur,
Sorted Iberia then went farther
North to Waterloo with Blucher to dispute.
Gave him the boot.

It's a bit forced, but there are too many difficult rhymes in the subject matter!



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