LimerickDB.com

Remember limericks? They were huge in the mid-20th century, but fell on hard times over the last couple decades. Now so many dirty limericks are a generation out-of-date, and the really clever ones lie neglected and un-retold.

I want more limericks, and I want the cleverest ones collected somewhere. It strikes me that a certain modern system for collecting bits of funny text might be perfect for both these goals.

So, after a moment’s work, I’ve set up LimerickDB.com, which you’ll recognize as similar to bash.org. Submit away, both old and new! Anonymity is encouraged and a respect for meter is required. Dirtiness is not mandatory, but it helps.

134 Responses to “LimerickDB.com”

  1. Xenobiologista Says:

    Geeks must like limericks. There are several dozen already.

    The one I submitted that starts with “A burleycue dancer…” is by Cyril Kornbluth, pulled from the “Fantasia Mathematica” anthology.

  2. Colin Says:

    I was just thinking about limericks a few days ago! Yet another example of “Randall Is In My Head.”

  3. khmer Says:

    there once was a man who could boast
    due to low latency at his host
    that when blog posts went down
    he was always around
    to sit down and type swiftly “FIRST POST”

  4. khmer Says:

    Xenobiologista and Colin
    Pals, your lifespan predictions are fallin
    And I won’t stop at you
    Warn your families too
    I’m more pissed than Mao talking to Stalin

  5. Jon Anderson Says:

    I don’t think I can fit these in your site and make sense, but freshman year I had 2 weeks to make a binary tree class. After finishing it in about half an hour, I was left with plenty of time for comments. I have a whole program full of stuff like this:

    void tree::_count(int& c) //_count steps through tree recursively
    { c++; //while always incrementing c
    if(left) left->_count(c); //repeat if its there,
    if(right) right->_count(c);} //and jump to it’s heir
    //so c can return count to me

    tree::~tree(){ //This function does nothing you see,
    } //I tried to have it use kill() tree.
    //But kill() calls delete,
    //and makes it repeat…
    //An infinite loop guarantee!

    tree* left; //tree* left is the small value’s node
    tree* right; //and tree* right is left’s antipode
    string data; //right here is the key
    int byte; //and where it may be
    void _count(int&); //_count tells how much data has flowed

  6. wiplash Says:

    Wow, this is a ridiculous coincidence. I’ve been writing limericks on my own for over a year and now this site gets created. I’m so very, very happy.

  7. ANONYMOOSE Says:

    I see what you did there, taking down the part about 4chan. Fear of Anonymous striking you down, eh?

  8. Alastair L.K. Drong Says:

    …the limerick that I’ve always wanted to hear to the end is from a star trek episode…

    “There was a young lady from Venus, whose body was shaped like a—”
    - ST:TNG, S01E03, “The Naked Now”

    …sadly, I had to look up the episode number and name *sigh*

  9. Bug report Says:

    You allow multiple up/down votes from the same person on the same limerick as long as they wait 5 seconds.

  10. xkcd Says:

    > I see what you did there, taking down the part about 4chan. Fear of Anonymous striking you down, eh?

    Nothing of the sort — I just decided it wasn’t adding to things. If nothing else that was a compliment to 4chan, who I have a sort of grudging old-school affection toward.

  11. xkcd Says:

    > You allow multiple up/down votes from the same person on the same limerick as long as they wait 5 seconds.

    Yeah, this is just like with xkcdb.com, where the moderator just keeps an eye out for too many votes from a given IP. Rash doesn’t seem to support any kind of complicated moderation, sadly, which means I have to do that from the http level. For now I could just kick up the delay to 30 seconds, although that means you can’t place two separate votes within a short time for any quotes …

    Rash seems to be a work in progress.

  12. mel Says:

    the thing about the requirement for meter, though… it’s not a strict metrical system, like iambic pentameter and the like (accentual syllabic). it’s a very loose metrical system, accentual only, with no guidelines on syllables. stresses are 3 3 2 2 3, yes? and even then, where the stresses lie in any given poem often can be debated. the wonderful thing about this system is that it’s so easy to follow. the anglo saxon poets used a four stress per line meter, and most popular poetry, like nursery rhymes, use this accentual system. mk, lesson over. thus speaks the english nerd.

  13. ANONYMOOSE Says:

    If only the other Anons could put their minds towards doing something useful; the power we wield these days is enormous. We could cause huge shifts in politics, religion, the media, etc, but instead we just raid Habbo over and over again. I can see why you have the old school affections towards us, but don’t really support us as we no longer strive to reach our potential.

  14. Chris Says:

    Didn’t you complain about bash.org style rankings when you did thefairest.info et al.? What with older submissions being ranked higher by dint of having more time to collect votes?

  15. Ekimekim Says:

    You know, I just discovered a few weeks ago that one of my favourite songs, “We Will All Go Together When We Go” by Tom Lehrer is written in Limericks! Here is an example verse (the song is about how nice it is that we’ll all die at the same time, with no mourning. it was written during the cold war when WW3 looked imminent):

    We will all bake together when we bake.
    There’ll be no-body present at the wake.
    With complete participation
    In that grand incineration,
    Nearly Three Billion hunks of well-done steak!

    It’s also the only thing I’ve heard that puts music to the Limerick meter.

  16. Exxon Valdez Says:

    See:

    $ whois -h whois.ripe.net -t limerick

    for another database of limericks.

  17. bb Says:

    I’m very disappointed that limerick #69 ended up being about mosquitos and not about sex acts.

  18. Anonymous Says:

    Change the title of the site so that when I link to it on facebook it doesn’t call it “Rash Quote Management System”!

  19. Adam Sampson Says:

    I get my daily fix of limericks from OEDILF:
    http://www.oedilf.com/

    Original — and often very clever — limericks, at that…

  20. chad Says:

    Theres a comic called XKCD see
    The humor does oh so amuse me
    So I check it all week
    The updates are meek
    But when they come; oh how they please me!

    – Chad S.

  21. Mark Wainwright Says:

    I’m not taken with the forced anonymity; there are already several famous limericks up there whose authors are known and deserve to be credited.

    I’d suggest a feature to enable corrections where one comes across poor scansion, but perhaps it would cause trouble.

    It’s already clear that the warning about scansion needs to apply also to punctuation. Contrary to what some people seem to think, it’s not all right, to put commas in, all over the place, just because there happens, to be a line ending there.

  22. Leszek Swirski Says:

    I’ve been communicating with some of my friends in limericks fairly constantly for the past term or so — none that are interesting enough by themselves to put up though, I’m afraid.

  23. sd Says:

    Ekimekim, it’s uncommon, but Gershwin did it too in “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. Limerick meter, anyway, with repeated lines instead of an entire limerick rhyme scheme.

    Ol’ Jonah, he lived in a whale
    Ol’ Jonah, he lived in a whale
    He made up his home in
    That fish’s abdomen
    Ol’ Jonah, he lived in a whale

    Methuselah lived nine hundred years
    Methuselah lived nine hundred years
    But who calls that livin’
    When no gal will give in
    To no man what’s nine hundred years?

    etc.

    (I could swear there was another song with that meter, but it’s not coming to me now.)

  24. Mark S. Says:

    I almost hate to mention it, but the great blog Metamorphosis (http://metamorphosism.com/archives/002601.html) has a Valentine’s Day Limerick Contest each year. It has strict rules about subject matter, too, which only makes it more fun. I almost hate to mention it because I’m a past winner and want to win again this year…

  25. yes Says:

    “the power we wield these days is enormous.”

    no

    you are a user on an internet site which is an offshoot of another internet site. you hold no power over anyone but your own imaginary hive-mind.

    4chan is an awful, awful website.

  26. LimerickDB | wongaBlog Says:

    [...] xkcd has created a limerick database. This is much-needed. It should go without saying that it’s absolutely [...]

  27. Darnn Says:

    I assume you know about Edawrd Lear, right?

  28. Darnn Says:

    Edward, even.

  29. Noam Samuel Says:

    Randall made a quote database
    Where limericks would chat quotes replace
    We all know in the latter
    The authors are fatter
    And often get sprayed with a mace

    (I’ll admit the above one’s untrue
    I can’t write in the morning, can you?
    I tell my untruth
    Because in my youth
    I need to be rhyming and new)

  30. Jochem Says:

    I love limericks :D

    Is there any chance there will be an RSS feed for the site any time soon?

  31. Mike Says:

    I submitted one I wrote years ago where the meter is in reverse (”A Limerick-writer perverse…”) - hope that’s allowed. :)

  32. Dan A. Says:

    I recommend this volume featuring many older limericks. It is a well organized and spaciously printed hardcover, available used on Amazon for $0.01 + shipping. In the editor’s words, “”This is the largest collection of limericks ever published, erotic or otherwise. Of the 1700 printed here, none are otherwise.”

    http://www.amazon.com/Limerick-G-Legman/dp/0517139111

  33. Erick Says:

    Speaking of the meter of limericks, mel, my favorite limerick has always been:

    There once a man from Japan
    Whose Limericks would never quite scan
    When asked why was so
    He said “I don’t know”
    “But maybe it’s because I always try to cram as many words into the last line as I ever possibly can!”

    (it’s better when read aloud, of course, rushing the last line to try to make it fit into the same amount of time as the first two lines)

  34. Belial Says:

    >If only the other Anons could put their minds towards doing something useful; the power we wield these days is enormous. We could cause huge shifts in politics, religion, the media, etc, but instead we just raid Habbo over and over again.

    The problem with organizing the masses to do anything is….the masses are really, really dumb, on the average.

  35. Amnesiasoft Says:

    I’ve added the only limerick I ever wrote, inspired by uncyclopedia:

    There once was a CEO named Steve,
    Who threw chairs at employees for reprieve,
    He shot lasers from his eyes
    To bury other guys,
    And he’ll Fucking Kill? you if you don’t believe.

  36. Anon Says:

    “The problem with organizing the masses to do anything is… the masses are really, really dumb, on the average.”

    You underestimate a simple fact, sir: that none of us is as dumb as all of us. The masses are individually dumb, sure - but as a group? 4channers can reach a level of stupid that few could even imagine.

    Imagine, if you will, PATRIOT act -enabled wiretapped phone calls being cracked by Anons and crapflooded with requests for Battletoads.

  37. ANONYMOOSE Says:

    Anon, we must make this happen. I’m sure that we could convince the rest of us to do it. Also, we do wield power, if you don’t believe that, go look at what happened when we hacked Fox news. Why is it that some of us have been arrested by the FBI? I say we have power.

  38. vanyali Says:

    There’s a very good qdb system called Chirpy (http://chirpy.sourceforge.net/). It’s far better and far less buggy than rash, and it’s used on a number of sites such as

    http://quotes.burntelectrons.org/ (irc.mozilla.org qdb)
    http://tjbash.org (TJHSST quotes)

  39. JessW Says:

    What i find interesting is the choice of the first line usage. It seems that one can either use the initial line as a way to advance the story (introducing character and action, or functioning in a similar vein), in which case the author will have 5 lines in which to create a basic storyline with varying degree of wit and/or wisdom. One could also decide on a story with a difficult A rhyme, in which case you can use the first line as a sort of ‘throwaway’ by just creating a town name that ends like said rhyme in order to complete the scheme. Of course, then you only have 4 lines to present the plot, so your story has to be even more streamlined.
    Unfortunately, none of this structural analysis is making my limericks come out any better.

  40. Bob the Squirrel Says:

    Great site! Should be good for many happy hours of perusing.

    Pardon my ignorance, though, but what does it mean to “flag” something by clicking the “X”s next to the titles?

  41. Tim the [] Says:

    To: Bob the Squirrel
    Re: Flag

    To flag something is to put an entry up for review that you find a.) offensive*, b.) distasteful* or c.) incorrectly added to the database. The admins will review the entry and decide whether a, b, or c are justified.

    *relative to the other content of the site, i.e. racially abusive, etc.
    _____

    Also, how far backed up is the database, so I know if my two entries have been denied or not. (I thought they were passable, if rather tame…)

    Using HTML and not Flash
    And presumably quite little cash
    One guy named Randall
    Flew off the handle
    And created a fun clone of Bash

  42. Anonymouse Says:

    For a great book of limericks go
    To any big bookstore you know
    For Penguin Limericks look
    Its a great little book
    and its Copyright 2000 or so

  43. Joachim Nilsson Says:

    My wife recommends Joe Greens’ “The Limerick Odessey” … http://limerickodyssey.blogspot.com/

  44. Harukio Says:

    Ooooh I love this DB

    Now somebody just needs to make a handy Facebook Application for this so I can share to joy with others!

    (wut u say? a useful facebook app?! UNHEARD OF!)

  45. Patrik Says:

    I love limericks!
    I only I coulds write good.
    ;D

  46. Feylias Says:

    There is a chain of limericks that I’ve been desiring/seeking for aeons, but by now I only remember that it involved frosting and that the last line was:

    “Quite frankly my dear, you’re exhausting!”

    Please add it if you’ve got it.

  47. ThemePark Says:

    I don’t know if anybody here is familiar with Bob and George, but I was reading the author’s commentary today, and xkcd was mentioned. I guess being called “a huge geek joke” is about the most flattering compliment you can give this awesome comic.

    http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/index.php?date=010205

    Feylias, it’s called Jenny’s Poem. And it’s beyond dirty. Plus it’s a whole lot of 5-line limericks, so I’m not sure it’d go into the DB. But with the words you gave me, it’s possible to find it with Google.

  48. Saxtor Says:

    What a wonderful site!

    Problem though, the limericks have been stuck at #269 since this afternoon. And I submitted quite a doozy! :(

  49. Algorithm Blogs » Blog Archive » Rhyme and Reason with Python Says:

    [...] reading xkcd’s blog, I went to LimerickDB.com. It looks and works just like bash.org, but for limericks. Quite amused [...]

  50. Kaytlyn Says:

    When my husband and I married this last summer, a friend of ours gave us a gag gift of an “adult trivia” game. Sadly, the thing was published before either of us were born, but nearly every other card contains a dirty limerick! I’ll be sure to take the time to input a few into the db. Be warned, though: many of them are terribly lame ;)

  51. bryan Says:

    The rocket limerics from gravity’s rainbow are excellent, mirrored here: http://bryannewbold.com/k/books/gravitysrainbow/

  52. Jon Says:

    Great! Now what about the poor neglected form the HIGGLEDY-PIGGLEDY?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgledy_piggledy

  53. Thornae Says:

    Somewhere at home, I have a scholarly work studying limericks, which is full of some of the best dirty limericks of the last century or so.
    I’ve just added one of my favourites to the site, but I’ll see if I can find the book and add a heap more.

    (Captcha: “he Purity”. Yeah, right.)

  54. Paul Says:

    There once was a man who’d admit
    He was a geek, so he writ
    A brilliant web strip
    That was geeky and hip
    ‘Til the raptors found his ball pit

  55. Paul Says:

    It seems to be stuck on limerick 302. I’ve submitted 4, but none have yet shown up. 302 has been the last for the past 15 minutes. How long does it take for new limericks to be added?

  56. Beltane Says:

    I submitted one that hasn’t shown up either, but I also accidentally clicked the “flag” link on one of the limericks first so I hope that didn’t have something to do with mine not appearing. I also found the layout a bit confusing so maybe I’m not looking in the right spots?

  57. Geekthras Says:

    Most QDB sites, such ash bash.org, qdb.us, xkcdb, or limerickdb need someone to approve a quote before it is added.

  58. James Says:

    http://chirpy.sourceforge.net/ limits votes to one per cookie and supports tags and a comment field. “The Chirpy! project originated mainly out of frustration caused by the Rash Quote Management System, due to its numerous bugs and its lack of efficiency and extensibility. While its developers openly admit that it was a quick job, eventually, this became unacceptable.”

  59. Fusciante Says:

    Great fun reading that page!

    Seems I accidentally flagged someone’s quote by clicking that X.

    Hope they’ll forgive me.

  60. Calantorntain Says:

    I just want to say thank you so much for creating the limerick db! It has brought me much joy.

  61. Robert Hulme Says:

    So, we can cycle about 10 times as fast as we walk. A raptor can run at 40mph. How fast could it pedal?

  62. stevarino - Limericks For All Occasions Says:

    [...] LimericksDB, from the always hunky Randall. [...]

  63. Matt Says:

    Any plans to include existing collections in the database? The fortune program as often distributed with Linux (probably a derivative of the BSD one) contains one thousand limericks in the “offensive” file. I realize these could be submitted individually (and some have been), but it might be interesting to toss them all in there and let the votes sort ‘em out.

    Source package, which includes the offensive limericks, at http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/f/fortune-mod/fortune-mod_1.99.1.orig.tar.gz

  64. Zach Says:

    Hey, I submitted a limerick a few hours ago that went like this:

    A boy from Seville once did spy
    Through a belljar the kilo, SI
    He lifted the glass
    And took out half the mass
    And thenceforth jumped four times as high

    Now there’s a less metrically proper alteration of it listed. What gives?

  65. Ben Says:

    The lyrics to the song “The Negotiation Limerick File” by the Beastie Boys (off the Hello Nasty album) are, not surprisingly, in limerick form.

  66. Phil Says:

    “The integral of zee-squared dee zee,
    From 1 to the cube root of 3,
    Times the cosine,
    Of 3 pi over 9,
    Is the log of the cube root of e”

    I might be making an embarrassingly obvious error here, but I get .5 instead of the given solution. Thoughts?

  67. mekura Says:

    the limerickdb always says it’s unreachable from my computer, I’m not sure why.

    @Phil:

    the first four lines equal 1/3
    the last line should be read as ln(e^(1/3)), which is, of course, also equal to 1/3

  68. LiiMuRi Says:

    Phil:
    int(z^2 dz, 1..3^1/3) = 2/3
    cos(3*Pi/9) = 1/2
    log(e^1/3) = 1/3

    And 2/3*1/2 = 1/3

    Hope you understood my notation.

  69. Man from Nantucket Says:

    haikuDB plzkthxbye

    a finite union
    of disjoint rectangles is
    elementary

  70. Phil Says:

    Ah, thanks guys. I’m used to log simply denoting base 10, and natural log being used for base e.

  71. LynzM Says:

    Man, people like you amaze me. You just decide to make something, and have the brains and tools to do so, and WHAM, a whole new piece of the internet world is born. Phenomenal. :)

  72. basstina Says:

    Dan A — I clicked on the link for the Limerick collection on Amazon — I have that book! Now if I only knew where it was. It was the best.

  73. Nachtkriecher Says:

    i just thought of this joke, and no one i know gets it. and then i decided to see if xkcd had any new comics up. and then i decided to see if i could email you my joke, but i found this is the easiest way to put it up. its really not a good joke at all, i just want to be able to tell somebody.

    “00000000 00000000 to your mother!!”

  74. Lindsey Says:

    This is completely unrelated to the Limerick website, but I just wanted to say that concerning comic #314 (Dating Pools), I am so that girl at the end of the bell curve.

    Turn ons: Complex mathematical equations, graphs, songs about robots, medieval weaponry, and handcuffs.

  75. sleepygamer Says:

    @Lindsey

    You sound perfect, I’ll take half a dozen!

    XD

    Also: LimerickDB had me in stitches for about an hour. Great stuff.

    Now to finish working on my limerick… :P

  76. Ttwitchh Says:

    First off, this is genius, I love it, it’s wonderful. Who knew limericks could be so amusing.

    Secondly - I submitted a few limericks last night, and they haven’t gone through yet. I was just wondering if there was some sort of scanning process, and mine didn’t make it, or if the server is simply slow…

  77. Lindsey Says:

    I am now of course musing on exactly how I could fill that order, but keep ripping the fabric of time/space… :P

  78. Robin Says:

    I read way faster than five lines every fifteen seconds. :(

  79. DizzyPion Says:

    Hey Lindsey, I’ll just take you, have a dozen (six) times. ;)

  80. DizzyPion Says:

    Hey Lindsey, I’ll just take you, have a dozen (six) times. ;)

  81. Sandeep George Says:

    well, fact of the matter is that i love to read the comments you put on the comic that you get on mouse over…

    Sadly, it kinda doesnt work on firefox, it truncates it and puts…

    I am a typical geek whose solution was to go to view> source and read it from there..

    But i recently discovered that its fully visible in Internet Explorer :( is it possible for you to do something about it?

  82. Sandeep George Says:

    love your comics to the core
    and the recaptcha shows 2 words now hmmm

    http://snazzed.blogspot.com

  83. Josh Says:

    Sandeep, the bug in Firefox is addressed in the FAQ (the “About” link from the comic). See “Why can’t I read the whole comic mouseover text in Firefox?” for a link to an extension that corrects the problem.

  84. Lindsey Says:

    Oh, you boys… ;)

    DizzyPion, is that all in a row? Because then I’m impressed.

    Oh, and Sandeep, even more helpfulness:
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1715

    I refuse to even touch IE.

  85. DizzyPion Says:

    Well it would be more of a fuction of time versus a row. I’m not really into determinants. I didn’t mean to post twice, I must have been distracted while typing, since I’m so dizzy. =P I also mispelled half and typed have.

  86. Lindsey Says:

    Well aren’t you the sweet-talker :P

    I was going to let that go, by the way.

  87. 10: party 20: goto 10 Says:

    Isaac Asimov would approve.

    @lindsey…. i was searching for that addon right as i read your comment.
    much more quick. cheers.

  88. Will Says:

    There’s truth in all that she speaks
    About open source browsing techniques
    The firefox fine tuning
    Has got them all swooning
    And she’s besotted a small clique of geeks!

  89. V Says:

    Does limerickdb actually work? I submitted some limericks and the don’t appear at the site. I tried contacting the admin and the mail was returned.

    Then I show this:

    % host limerickdb.com
    limerickdb.com has address 216.93.242.10
    limerickdb.com mail is handled by 0 limerickdb.com.

  90. Lindsey Says:

    @ Will:

    Is that about me? (I don’t want to assume.. how presumptuous!)

    If so, it made me happy!
    Nobody’s ever written a limerick about me before, though the form does seem apt.

    Oh, and glad to be helpful. I aim to please ;)

  91. Lindsey Says:

    I joined the forums by the way.

  92. waterrocks Says:

    I’m an Associate Editor at OEDILF (as mentioned by Adam Sampson above). We have over 41,000 approved limericks and thousands more going through the workshopping process. We’re aiming to define every word in the English language using a limerick — so far we’re up to the Co- section of the alphabet. We have some clever writers, too. I for one would love to see some xkcd readers come and join in the fun. It’s addictive, though — be warned!

    http://www.oedilf.com

  93. qkslvrwolf Says:

    It needs a rss feed. Seriously.

  94. Kari Says:

    Funny you should be talking about this, i had actually been googling funny limericks the other day because i was interested in it but at least the superficial/quick google results were not very satisfying.

  95. sven monk Says:

    My father has published not one but two books of his own Limericks here in Australia, called “Rude Places Down Under” and the creatively titled sequel “Very Rude Places Down Under”. Finally I feel able to confess that.

  96. VaCKo Says:

    There once was a man from Perdue
    Whose limericks stopped at line two.

    There once was a man from Verdun.

    (There’s also one about a man named Nero, but I can’t seem to find it.)

    By Isaac Asimov and, I think, someone else - possibly John Ciardi?

    There is something about satyriasis
    That arouses psychiatrists’ biases,
    But we’re both of us pleased
    We’re in this way diseased
    As the damsel who’s waiting to try us is.

  97. Will Says:

    Yes Lindsay, it was *your* direction
    That I pointed my rhyming inflections
    And make no mistake
    I think Mozilla’s great
    … but I’d like to make one small correction

    *bum, bum bum*

    If it’s tool tips you need
    With infallable speed
    And a GUI that don’t vex or perplex
    It’s display standars nicely
    Linux, Windows and thricely
    .. as nicely, on ol’ osX

    So I’ve sped timing lightly
    And rehearsed politely
    I hope it conveys all my glee
    See it’s *Opera* for me
    ‘Cause like Firefox, it’s free
    And all tooltips are belong to thee!

    And no, I don’t work there
    I just felt I should share
    For me, all the standards are key (you see?)
    ‘Cause it fucks up the margins
    By a few thousand farthings
    So ANYTHING ELSE BUT IE.

    Please?

    – The Mourned Designer

  98. Anonymous Says:

    /r/ing limerick version of “Doom: Repercussions of Evil”.

    I worked on it for half an hour but couldn’t get it to work. And then I was a zombie.

  99. muteKi Says:

    There was once a limerick database
    Presenting dog’rel in a font style monospace
    Though contributions did flow
    The updates were too slow
    Yet maintained steady presence in the webspace

  100. Lindsey Says:

    If you don’t speak in verse all the time, then you should.

    Oh- and I have both Opera and Firefox installed- and use them both!

  101. Will Says:

    Although speaking in verse is inspiring
    It’s rewriting my brains inner wiring
    The more I rehearase
    I start *thinking* in verse
    Which is honestly really quite …
    Tiresome?

  102. ingrid Says:

    Hiya…
    I just added you to my list for the “thinking blog award”… Don’t feel obliged to follow the meme… but I wanted you to know.

  103. Marcus Says:

    Am I the only one that thought about resistor color code limericks??

  104. oddEvan.com » Blog Archive » Limericks galore! Says:

    [...] the genius behind xkcd just opened up LimerickDB. Be warned, many (if not most) are definitely NSFW, but I find many of them quite [...]

  105. Topquark Says:

    @Nachtkreicher:

    I got it. I laughed. :) I’m going to send that joke to some of my CS friends.

  106. Sander Says:

    Any chance you could upgrade the software running this DB to chirpy? http://chirpy.sourceforge.net/ - Rash is _so_ annoying with not preventing the default action when clicking on a vote link for a quote/limerick; I’m totally not used to having to middle-click anymore. (And even if I do, that’s still a pain for then needing to go close all those tabs again.)

  107. ThemePark Says:

    Marcus, probably you are, but by all means feel free to share one such limerick with us. I’m quite curious to see what you have in mind.

  108. Andrew Says:

    God bless you for this.

  109. Carmelita Says:

    Hoh man, this is awesome.

  110. shaunstamonsta Says:

    “There once was a man from Perdue
    Whose limericks stopped at line two.

    There once was a man from Verdun.

    (There’s also one about a man named Nero, but I can’t seem to find it.)”

    :D
    :D
    :D

  111. Lindsey Says:

    @ Will:

    Yeah I bet. You can stop now if you want :P

    Adoration at alliteration, also! As an apt alliterator, a-aimed alliterations are always amazingly auspiciously assembled.

  112. Lindsey Says:

    Oh one more thing, I posted it on my personal blag (fairly new, most of the posts are about anarchism/communism right now) with a request for something a little more bawdy to be written about me.

    I have no readers though so nobody will haha. The only reason I created it in the first place was to extrapolate on an assignment, and to share my rantings with my classmates.

  113. Qov Says:

    There’s a cooperative limerick project over here. They could use some fresh blood.

  114. AndyM Says:

    Something broken? None of my submissions have made it on (they seem good enough to me), and when I send mail to admin@limerickdb.com it replies:

    Reporting-MTA: dns; QMTA08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.80]
    Received-From-MTA: dns; OMTA01.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.11]
    Arrival-Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:18:54 +0000

    Final-recipient: rfc822; admin@limerickdb.com
    Action: failed
    Status: 5.1.1
    Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 554 5.7.1 : Relay access denied
    Last-attempt-Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:18:54 +0000

  115. a1s Says:

    here’s one (#107), is it reminding you of anything at all ?:

    See that lighthouse beam in the sky
    That guides yonder ships going by?
    My friend shines that beam;
    She’s living her dream.
    I’m in grad school. I still don’t know why.

  116. Lee Says:

    ajax voting please!
    k thanks

  117. Pam Says:

    The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form is working on producing a dictionary of the English Language, in limericks. It has over 41,000 limericks, with more added every day. See http://www.oedilf.com/ to read or write!

  118. Kevin Says:

    I can’t actually believe this one hasn’t been posted yet.

    There once was a man from Kent
    Whose dick was so long that it bent
    To keep out of trouble
    He’d fold it in double
    And instead of coming he went.

  119. Hacker Says:

    A little hacking job on the votes here… ;-)

    #!/bin/bash
    while curl ‘http://limerickdb.com/?ratingplus&id=27′|true
    do
    echo ‘Hacked!’;
    sleep 16
    done

  120. UofMAero Says:

    Funny thing about finding this, is that the same day this was posted, I was shown a paper written by my aerodynamics professor at the university of michigan. He wrote an entire CFD theory paper in limerick. Good to know my profs are as bored as I am.

  121. An online database of new limericks « Anxious Mo-Fo Says:

    [...] And many more, found here: LimerickDB. See also a note from the site’s creator. [...]

  122. Rambo Says:

    there once was a hooker named jill
    who used dynamite for a thrill
    they found her vagina
    in north carolina
    and bits of her tits in brazil

    There once was a man of Arnoux
    whose limericks stopped at line two

  123. Xpodmaniac Says:

    Can anyone help me? I can’t get my limericks to appear on the site. Any tips?

  124. Laura Bennett Says:

    There once was a cat hypothetical
    who wrote sonnets and verse quite poetical
    He said “Cainines could, if only they would
    but I fear that their verse is sheer doggeral”

  125. snig Says:

    The British radio show “I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue” still generates limericks every now and then.

  126. Random Thoughts.... - Page 445 - FinalGear.com Forums Says:

    [...] first, I thought Randall Munroe’s* idea of starting a limerick database in the same vein as bash.org was a bit "meh", but, once again, it turns out that the man [...]

  127. pinchies Says:

    Please, could we have an RSS feed? There used to be one for bash.org too, but they stopped it.
    BTW, XKCD rocks. ;-)

  128. carl Says:

    Thanks. I used to have several limericks of my own stuck in my head, but after reading a couple of dozen of the latest postings I can’t remember them. Sort of a retroactive memory interference thing I guess. In any case I sincerely appreciate forgetting them.

  129. synthgeek Says:

    awesome

  130. Feylias Says:

    ThemePark: Thanks. It’s not quite as clever as I remember it, all those years ago, but it’s good to see it again. My own Google-Fu was weak until I got the title.

  131. Ronan Says:

    I live in Limerick if that helps.

  132. DAWN Says:

    this is my comment

  133. DAWN Says:

    hello

  134. Gene Chase Says:

    I’m here because I was lookin’ for a place to comment on your current xkcd comic #435.

    When I was in high school (circa 1960), I chose math as a college major for similar reasons, and then later math logic, ditto: I found that psychology was applied bio; bio, applied chem; chem, applied physics; physics, applied math. But then I later thought: But math is applied philosophy; philosophy, applied psychology. Hence the whole thing is a circle. I put that in a book chapter in 1987, “Complementarity as a Christian philosophy of Mathematics,” in
    Heie and Wolfe.

    If I were to modify that now, I’d insert “Physics is applied information science” between physics and math.

    Enjoyed the video of your talk at Google!

    –Gene Chase

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