Rhyming words

This week i was slightly knackered and wanted something fairly easy to do - so with my Oral English classes I decided they needed to know limericks.  And to be able to write limericks you have to know rhyming words.  Do you realise how hard that is for the students?

I chose some words at relative random - i.e. cat, mouse, board, life, honey.  They had to come up with 2 rhyming words each for these.  This is not all that easy!  Then after we had worked through that we discussed how you actually find rhyming words.

Then - I listed the provinces of China - and we found rhyming words for all of these. (All of the ones ending in -jiang are a pain!).

Then I wrote a simple limerick on the board, discussed it's structure, showed them how to write another one using 'Xi'an' as an example, and yet another one using 'Lotus' as an example and let them create their own.

It was fun - and they started to listen to the sounds of words rather than the spelling of them.

What a great idea Lotus. Thanks for sharing.

Great idea. I wonder how long it will take to explain to my troublesome class what RHYME means 

The was a young lady from Ryde
Of eating green apples she died
The apples fermented
Inside the lamented
And made cider inside her insides.

There was a young man from Japan
Who wrote lines that never would scan
When they asked him why
He made his reply
I always try to fit as many words into the last line as ever I possibly can.

'Course, there are some limericks that are naughtier than these, but damn if I can think of them at the moment.

Lotus, mentioning provinces ending in jiang reminds me of Greg Champion, well known folk singer and song writer in Hoganland.  He was once asked why he had never written a song specifically about Australia.  He replied that Australia was a hard word to find rhymes for, one of the few that he could think of was failure.

I managed to come up with dahlia as well, but it is a difficult country to come from for limericks.

There was a young girl from Xi'an
who liked to cook for her man
made him some baozi
tho' they were jiaozi
So her man preferred to eat from a can.

Oh, people!!! Limericks have a fixed rhyme, rhythm and meter pattern....except for the "young man of Japan", of course. The last line also is the punch line. Am I going to have to endure a swag of badly crafted doggerel, here?? 

Okay, I'll do the hard bit, then fellow saloonites just have to write the next four lines.    on me when we're finished.

There was a young old man they called George

hard bit, my bum!! The first line is always the easiest. It's the last line that usually causes problems.
There was a young fella called Newbs
Who had the desire to dye pubes.

There was a young old man they called George

Who used to work out with a forge

Sorry, Newbs. My brain refuses to work. Wait till I've had a few beers.

Quote from: Newbs on May 23, 2007, 09:51:03 PM

There was a young old man they called George

Who used to work out with a forge

When he turned up the heat,
It affected his feet,
So "Dancin' Chicken" now icons for George!

MMmmmm. Barely passable.

There was a young fella called Newbs
Who had the desire to dye pubes.

"Red, White and Blue,
Are my Colours, so true,"
Said Newbs, "Baijiu just lubes up my tubes!"

Blew it on the last line.

There was a young fella called Newbs
Who had the desire to dye pubes
So he lined up a few
Their pube dying to do
And went nuts with the colours and hues.

There was an old man they called George
Who desired upon maidens to gorge
When Babe said,