To set up your hypothesis
Make an informative guess
For what you will try
To be like Bill Nye
And live a life of success.
Limericks have a specific structure for rhyme scheme and rhythm.
The rhyme scheme is
A – hypothesis
A – guess
B – try
B – Nye
A – success
So in the sample above, notice that hypothesis and guess rhyme, try and Nye rhyme, and then I bring the rhyme back to success, rhyming with hypothesis and guess. Limericks need to stick to the AABBA rhyme scheme to be a traditional limerick.
For the rhythm part, to keep it simple let’s just say that lines 1,2, and 5 are the longer rhythms and 3 and 4 are the quicker rhythms.
Tradition has it that limericks started out in Limerick, Ireland (sounds believable enough) and that the poems have their roots in a certain type of song.
Here’s a brain-teaser limerick from Kay DeVicci and aps.org:
The sum of 3 numbers is 4;
The product is (-2) more;
The sum of their squares,
If anyone cares,
Is just 14 less than a score.
