My limericks

[Charles E. Townsend]

To Donald Dwyer and Alex Rudd

Amazingly, despite working with the Web and getting SEELANGS messages 
for many years, I've never learned how to post anything on it.
Ernie Scatton suggested to me that one of you or both are in charge of 
SEELANGS postings and might be able to help me.

Although I haven't been very active in our field for a while, a few 
months ago I started composing limericks in my head while on walks to 
help me recover from orthopedic trouble. It's become quite a pastime, 
and I think I've gotten rather good at it. I've written more than 200, 
including maybe 50 in Russian and Czech, some of which have gotten very 
good reception from my Czech and Russian friends and other colleagues in 
the field. All insist that they should appear somewhere. I copy some 
Russian and Czech ones below, along with some in English about the 
Slavic field and then two about Horace Lunt. They're sort of lightly 
humorous things; none of them are off-color. I have a lot more limericks 
in all three languages and some in German and French as well.

Susan Kresin has just asked me if I have sent any of my limericks for 
consideration for the AATSEEL Newsletter (some of my Czech ones are to 
appear in her Czech Language News). I wonder if the Newsletter would be 
interested in publishing some.

I sent the two limericks about Horace Lunt, my former mentor when I got 
my PhD and taught at Harvard, to Cindy Vakarelijska for inclusion in the 
festschrift for Lunt they are planning. Their committee liked them but 
thought, unsurprisingly, that the volume was too serious to include 
them, so they suggested that I investigate posting them elsewhere.

Please let me know what you think, and thanks in advance for your 
trouble. Feel free to call if you have any questions. Hope it all isn't 
too much to read through. Just a few will give you a clear idea of what 
the limericks are like.

Best regards,

Charles E.Townsend
Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages
Princeton University

145 Hickory Court
Princeton, NJ 08540
609-921-8472
e-mail: townsend at princeton.edu


*/RUSSIAN LANGUAGE/*


Недавно я принял решение
Исследовать русское спряжение.
Но без доступа к гиду
К глагольному виду
Я решил перейти на склонение.


Числительные – это беда.
Но кое-что знаю слегка.
От одного по сто
Да еще девяноста
Но кто поймет сорок - сорока?


В русском ведь логики нет.
Грамматика его –винегрет.
Структура – мистерия,
Настанет истерия.
Ведь знаю из нее лишь скелет.


В бою против злых языков
Обойтись нам нельзя без штыков.
Сколько ни мучимся,
Им не научимся.
Перейдем лучше к бою быков.


Русский язык изучаю

Пять лет, и я хорошо знаю,

Что язык он столь трудный,

Что хожу как сын блудный

И пятерки вряд ли получаю.



*/CZECH LANGUAGE/*


Přestože mám rád český lid,

V tom jazycenenajdu klid.
Česká konjugace

To není legrace,
A nesnáším slovesný vid.


Svatá jsi Ty, česká řeč

Jsi naše ochrana a meč

Všechny aktivity

Obětujeme Ti

Až přijde poslední křeč.

Bojuji s Tebou, řeč česká.

Strašně se dřu až do dneska.

Až Tě konečně zvládnu

A na Tvém poli padnu,

Má smrt bude náramně hezká!



*/SLAVIC FIELD/*


Be sure to abjure the sledgehammer

When you teach transformational grammar.

Cutting down all those trees

May seem like a breeze,

But you could wind up in the slammer.


If you’re majoring in Russian lit.

Stick close to the old nitty grit.

If you bet all your horses

On non-primary sources

You could wind up in lit crit.



All hail to Slavic linguistics.

According to all my statistics,

When Jakobson speaks

Every girl student shrieks,

And the guys go simply ballistics.




/*HORACE LUNT*/



Прославленным будь наш Горас.

Ведь был взором многим из нас.

Наш славянкий удел
Он возвысить сумел.
Наше стадо он всю жизнь пас.



All hail to Horace Gray Lunt!
And though he could sometimes be blunt,
Let's all join the chorus
For our fabled Horace.
His students all placed far in front.

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