My limericks

[Robert Orr]

"Let's all join the chorus "
"For our fabled Horace"
 
how many people rhyme "chorus" and "Horace"?

  _____  

From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Jules Levin
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:24 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] My limericks


On 5/30/2012 2:06 PM, Charles E. Townsend wrote: 


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. 


A great contribution to paraSlavic studies!  It reminded me of a similar creative effort.  Decades ago at the front desk of the Slavic dept at UCLA, someone posted parody lyrics to Sam Cooke's Wonderful World:  " Don't know much about history. Don't know much biology. Don't know much about a science book ..."  Of course the parody lyrics all referred to topics that Slavic grad students studied.  It would be a wonderful world if someone on our list still had those lyrics and would share them!
Jules Levin
Los Angeles








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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