To celebrate good news for Canadian cattle producers, here’s a poor man’s sonnet that offers a definition of BSE:
A bovine gets holes in her brain
That make her go slightly insane.
Meanwhile cowboys go broke
As do most cattle folk
And the brain ain’t the site of the pain.
After 18 months, there is potential progress toward opening the U.S. border to Canadian cattle. Good news and BSE mentioned in the same breath? Enjoy it while you can.
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The lame limerick spilled out because the news coincided with plans to tell you about The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form.
Headed by editor-in-chief Chris J. Strolin, a group of poets has undertaken a project to rewrite the dictionary so each definition takes the form of a limerick. They expect it will take 25 to 100 years to complete the collection of an estimated three million limericks.
Why attempt such a crazy thing? For love of the English language, says the editor.
“A dictionary is one of the most respected and revered books in any language and yet (it is) not the most readable of literature,” says Strolin in a News release
news. “Since the limerick is the most reader-friendly of all varieties of English poetry, (contributing editors) chose it as their standard.”
To illuminate the whimsical nature of the project, its website at www.oedilf.com has as its icon the lighthouse at Nantucket. That unfortunate town figures prominently in the type of limericks that you don’t repeat in front of Grandma.
The job is of such a size that Strolin and friends are conscripting willing members of the public to contribute their own “poor man’s sonnets.” Here’s a recent one posted by someone identified only as The Limericker, who defines the word acids:
Acids, I think you’ll agree,
Are chemical hazards, you see.
They’ll eat through a rock
Or your grandfather clock,
So it’s wise to just let acids be.
A check on words defined so far reveals no entry for farmer, so here’s a stab at it:
A farmer’s a steward of land
Who plants seeds and works with his hands.
He makes little money
But that’s OK, honey
It’s next year that’s going to be grand.
And since there’s no way to resist relating this project to current news, here’s an explanation of the Alberta election:
King Ralph he did call an election
To ask for the voters’ reflection.
Did he do a good job
Saving money in gobs?
They voted yes to his retention.
