Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
The limerick is poetry, terse,
Oft-rendered not better but worse
By rhymesters ham-fisted,
Their anapests twisted,
Whose doggerel is not worth a curse.
An anapest is the classic, two-short-syllables-followed-by-a-long-one metre that is key to a properly constituted limerick. It's also called an antidactylus.
Both words are in the Oxford English Dictionary, which Chris Strolin – formerly with the U.S. Air Force and now sharpening and selling knives for a living – set himself to rewrite.
His idea: turn each word into a limerick (defined by the Compact OED as "a humorous five-line poem with a rhyme scheme aabba.").
On the phone from his home in Belleville, Ill., Strolin says the Oxford people got a little sniffy and threatened legal action if he continued to use their name.
This is why the project, now into its fifth year with some 50,000 limericks approved for use, has become The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form.
Strolin, approaching his 57th birthday, is actually somewhat dismissive of the OED, whose 1.7 million words – a very rough estimate – don't include proper names.
"You'll find `Shakespearean' but not `Shakespeare,'" he says. "We have names and slang."
Which could push the total past 2 million words and make the farthest-off projected completion date, which ranges from 25 years to the 29th century, seem less fanciful.
The first question – and it's clear Strolin's been asked it before – has to be: "Are you mad?"
"My stock answer is, `Absolutely,'" he says. "I'm also mad about the English language."
Mad enough to belong, several years ago, to a website devoted to the discussion of English.
"Half the people were American and half English," he says. "I fell into the stereotype of the brash, know-it-all Yank. I said, `The OED is okay as far as it goes, but it needs a lot of work. I'm going to rewrite it.'
"Then I said, 'That's not enough of a challenge. I'm going to rewrite it in limerick form.'
"The response was 'Ha-ha-ha.' But on May 10, 2004, I made a proper announcement. Crazy American. People laughed, but they were also writing limericks, not believing I was serious."
Now, Strolin figures some 850 people from around the world have written at least one limerick for him. Most of the 55,000 that have been approved or are in the pipeline are the work of between 70 and 80 stalwarts. Each effort is critiqued and workshopped to bring it as close as possible to perfection.
One, from a Toronto contributor, defines "ad infinitum:"
"Each limerick here is an item,
And we've all made it clear we can write 'em.
In volumes! A score!
And then more upon more!
The work goes on ad infinitum!"
Not all are of that standard. Unlikely to make the cut is one defining "ant:"
"Ants have six legs
And like to crawl in bags
They can really bite
Especially at night
They are good to eat."
As contributors have emerged from across Europe and Asia, Strolin says he's been struck by the variations of English. "Most people are familiar with the differences between American English and British English. But when you get into Indian English, or even New Zealand English, that's an education."
Some words – "tomayto" and "tomahto," for example – may rhyme in one country but not another.
"But whatever the pronunciation in your part of the world, that's good enough for us," he says. "We're truly international."
With the exception of "limerick" itself, right now the OEDILF is accepting submissions only for words beginning with A through D.
"If I were to open up the entire alphabet, all the good words would be grabbed and people in coming years would be left with the difficult ones," Strolin says.
Some, he acknowledges, are a huge challenge. One that comes to mind is "antidisestablishmentarianism," which means opposition to the withdrawal of state support from a recognized church. Try fitting that into five well-formed lines.
Light-hearted though the project may seem, Strolin insists it will survive well into the future.
"I do firmly believe that people in the coming centuries, when they read limericks, will be reading ours.
"My fear was all I would get was people whose idea of a limerick was bawdy, sexual innuendo. But we're getting some very good stuff from some very talented people.
"I used to approve every limerick myself. That got to be too much so we've expanded to have associate editors. I hope to be around for a while, but I have no expectation of writing on the Z words."
The limerick defining "limerick" at the top of this story is this reporter's submission to the OEDILF. After being (in all modesty) well-received by other contributors, it was approved last week and is now part of the dictionary. (I have 16 others under consideration!)
For a closer look at the dictionary, and your own chance to contribute, visit oedilf.com.
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