xref: /src/games/fortune/datfiles/limerick

A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
	She found a good way
	To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the seashore.
%
A computer, to print out a fact,
Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
	But this output can be
	No more than debris,
If the input was short of exact.
		-- Gigo
%
A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison
And had an affair with a Saracen.
	She was not oversexed,
	Or jealous or vexed,
She just wanted to make a comparison.
%
A dozen, a gross, and a score,
Plus three times the square root of four,
	Divided by seven,
	Plus five times eleven,
Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.
%
A dreary young bank clerk named Fennis
Wished to foster an aura of menace;
	To make people afraid
	He wore gloves of grey suede
And white footgear intended for tennis.
		-- Edward Gorey
%
A hacker who screwed a mag tape
Was caught and convicted of rape.
	To jail he did go,
	From which, to his woe
He couldn't get out with ESC.
%
A limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
	But the good ones I've seen
	So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
%
A linguist thought it a farce
That memory space was so sparse.
	One day they increased it.
	Said he as he seized it:
"At last! Enough core for the parse".
%
A new dramatist of the absurd
Has a voice that will shortly be heard.
	I learn from my spies
	He's about to devise
An unprintable three-letter word.
%
A progressive professor named Winners
Held classes each evening for sinners.
	They were graded and spaced
	So the vile and debased
Would not be held back by beginners.
%
A very intelligent turtle
Found programming UNIX a hurdle
	The system, you see,
	Ran as slow as did he,
And that's not saying much for the turtle.
%
A wonderful bird is the pelican.
His mouth can hold more than his belican.
	He can take in his beak
	Enough food for a week.
And I'm darned if I know how the helican.
%
Despising machines to a man,
The Luddites joined up with the Klan,
	And ride out by night
	In a sheeting of white
To lynch all the robots they can.
		-- C. M. and G. A. Maxson
%
Flappity, floppity, flip
The mouse on the m"obius strip;
	The strip revolved,
	The mouse dissolved
In a chronodimensional skip.
%
If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker,
It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock.
	Or some joker who is slicker,
	Will trick you of your liquor,
If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock.
%
Limericks are art forms complex,
Their topics run chiefly to sex.
	They usually have virgins,
	And masculine urgin's,
And other erotic effects.
%
System/3!  System/3!
See how it runs!  See how it runs!
	Its monitor loses so totally!
	It runs all its programs in RPG!
	It's made by our favorite monopoly!
System/3!
%
There once was a girl named Irene
Who lived on distilled kerosene
	But she started absorbin'
	A new hydrocarbon
And since then has never benzene.
%
There once was a member of Mensa
Who was a most excellent fencer.
	The sword that he used
	Was his -- (line is refused,
And has now been removed by the censor).
%
There once was an old man from Esser,
Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser.
	It at last grew so small,
	He knew nothing at all,
And now he's a College Professor.
%
There was a young lady from Hyde
Who ate a green apple and died.
	While her lover lamented
	The apple fermented
And made cider inside her inside.
%
There was a young lady from Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
	They returned from the ride
	With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
%
There was a young man who said "God,
I find it exceedingly odd,
	That the willow oak tree
	Continues to be,
When there's no one about in the Quad."

"Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd,
For I'm always about in the Quad;
	And that's why the tree,
	Continues to be,"
Signed "Yours faithfully, God."
%
There was a young poet named Dan,
Whose poetry never would scan.
	When told this was so,
	He said, "Yes, I know.
It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can."
%
A computer called Illiac4
Had a rather tough bug in its core.
	It chewed up its cards
	And spewed yards and yards
Of illegible tape on the floor.
%