In Competition No. 2651 you were invited to submit limericks that are also tongue-twisters.
Thanks to J. Seery for suggesting this fiendish assignment. It is not easy to produce a true tongue-twister within the confines of the meter and rhyme scheme of the limerick.
Perhaps the suggestion was inspired by Lou Brooks’s Twimericks: The Book of Tongue-Twisting Limericks, which I happen to have been reading to my young son. He finds my pitiful attempts at articulating ‘Flapjack Jack flipped flat flapjacks at Phil’ hilarious, but ‘Flapjack Jack’ is a piece of cake compared with some of your offerings. Gillian Ewing, Jane Dards and Virginia Price-Evans all reduced me to lisping incoherence.
The quirky, comical and fluency-defying best of the bunch are printed below. They earn their authors £9 apiece.
On Scafell Serena saw sheep
And summed them to send her to sleep:
She said to them ‘Shoo!’
Should her snooze then ensue?
No, the sheep found the slope slightly steep.
Bill Greenwell
A chanteuse called Shona from Sheen
wore shell suits of sequinned shagreen;
some slow chansons simmered,
some sinfully shimmered,
and her shows score as semi-obscene.
Three thieves thought they’d thrive in Tibet;
they were thrusting, stout-thighed and thickset.
But threatening Tibetans
with shrapnel and trepans
earns a thrashing they’ll henceforth regret.
D.A. Prince
A beefy police chief from Leith
Had as chief brief to seize a sheep thief
But the sheep were now pies
Chops, steaks, giblets and eyes,
Thus that sheep thief deceived the Leith chief
Shirley Curran
When slick Mick mocks Max, Max mocks Mick,
To mock makes the two of them tick.
Though it’s trivial and trite
And a mite impolite
Mindless mocking makes Mick and Max click.
Alan Millard
Surely, spikey Steve’s scarcely inert,
Sat sharp in his smart shark skin shirt,
He swaps trendy twill trousers,
(such potent arousers)
At nights, with a slinky silk skirt.
G.W. Tapper
On this isthmus our citrus has pith.
To say that they’re pithless ’s a myth.
They show thick pith in spades —
(Should you say piss in thpades
Isthmus lispers will all take the pith.)
Martin Parker
The priest in East Leith, Father Keith,
Wore some ancient and wooden false teeth.
We were sprayed when he prayed,
Till the day he mislaid
His antique teak teeth in West Meath.
Brian Murdoch
A subtle sous-chef from Seville
Stewed with slick, serendipitous skill
A rich mishmash of fish,
Such a succulent dish,
A delicious, conspicuous thrill.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada breathes riches,
Offenbach often has us in Styxes,
While Sibelius’s Swan
Swims in whimsical dawn,
Wagner’s flighty Valkyries are witches.
Frank McDonald
In Balquhidder a shuddersome crew
(Squat Scotch sex fiends) sussurantly stew
Slab scraps of dressed flesh
Best fresh from the creche —
A toothsomely loathsome ragout!
John Whitworth
The myth of Miss Moth whose moth mother
with whispering wings like no other
could lisp major fifths
in pitch-perfect riffs
was smithed with Miss Moth’s misfit brother.
Robert Schechter
Hieronymus Bosch sloshed his brush in
a fat fishwife’s flatfish discussion.
First flesh, then fish floundered,
as Bosch, bashed and pounded,
fled fast from fried flatfish percussion.
Janet Kenny
There once was a whistler of Whitstable
Whom women found quite irresistible,
They loved his louche lips,
His huge huggable hips,
And declared them unmissably kissable.
Tim Raikes
The twimerick’s rhythmical mix
Of tongue-tying tripwires and tics,
Features free-wheeling phonics,
Cacophonous sonics,
And lip-busting booms, biffs and licks.
P.C. Parrish
Since three Elspeth Smith’s been a lisper,
So she speaks in a shy sort of whisper;
Though she sweetly confesses
Saving breath on her esses
Makes those sibilant sounds scarcely crisper.
He turned talk to a tortuous tangle,
Murdered words in a merciless mangle;
Now stoat swathed in ermine
Prezza’s joined Bevan’s vermin,
Weaselly working a well-rehearsed wangle.
W.J. Webster
No. 2654: A to Z
You are invited to submit a piece of lively and plausible prose, the first word beginning with ‘a’, the second with ‘b’, and so on, throughout the alphabet. Then start from ‘a’ again up to a maximum of 156 words. Entries should be submitted by email, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 30 June.
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