Friday, June 03, 2005
There Once Was an Odd Dictionary
A few years ago, I got on a real limerick-writing kick. My friends (one roommate in particular) and I would write crazy little limericks about the pithy day-to-day happenings in our lives, and try to one-up each other in terms of creative rhyme, wordplay, etc. My roommate and I even sold a few limericks at a church fundraising auction.
That hobby has passed with time, but now I've found a new potential opportunity to kick my limericking back into high gear. The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form is a monumental project modeled after the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED, universally considered to be the Number One dictionary of the English language (if not of any language), was able to be written back in the late 1800s only with the help of contributors from the public, who sent in quotes from literature, demonstrating how certain words were used in context.
The OEDILF is even more communitarian. Anyone can write the actual definition of any word. The only condition: the definition has to be in the form of a limerick (and it seems they're going to be very strict about meter and rhyme, which I think is a good thing).
So I've signed up, and will be dusting off my Limericist hat soon. I invite all my readers to join me, and discover the magic of the limerick.
That hobby has passed with time, but now I've found a new potential opportunity to kick my limericking back into high gear. The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form is a monumental project modeled after the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED, universally considered to be the Number One dictionary of the English language (if not of any language), was able to be written back in the late 1800s only with the help of contributors from the public, who sent in quotes from literature, demonstrating how certain words were used in context.
The OEDILF is even more communitarian. Anyone can write the actual definition of any word. The only condition: the definition has to be in the form of a limerick (and it seems they're going to be very strict about meter and rhyme, which I think is a good thing).
So I've signed up, and will be dusting off my Limericist hat soon. I invite all my readers to join me, and discover the magic of the limerick.
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