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I spoke with some of you in chat the other day about questions that would be relevant to this limerick contest we're sponsoring on Sentence First, and I just wanted to let you know it went up today! The author, Stan, gave us a really nice write up and linked to a bunch of questions! Check it out and feel free to enter.

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    I was going to vote to close as "not a real question", but you cleverly inserted a question mark at the end of the title. Foiled again!
    – mmyers
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 16:48
  • I meant for this to be on meta - to tell everyone about the contest. Did it accidentally go to the actual site?
    – Lauren
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 16:51
  • No, you're fine. There is a "not a real question" close reason on meta sites but it really shouldn't be there, I think.
    – mmyers
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 17:11
  • I think you misworded. The questions in the sample chat might be relevant for the nature of ELU, not to the limerick contest.
    – Bogdan Lataianu
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 18:54
  • it was just a reference so that people who have already discussed the limerick contest would know it's the same one
    – Lauren
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 19:26
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    I see. Exclamation points in titles are automatically converted to question marks.
    – mmyers
    Commented Sep 14, 2011 at 20:39
  • Ahh ok. Thanks for letting me know.
    – Lauren
    Commented Sep 14, 2011 at 20:53

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And the winners have been chosen! From Sentence first:

Update 2: So many good limericks were entered, I wish I had more prizes to give. Ten times more. But I’m happy to announce the following three winners:

Second prize (B) goes to Mike Page:

If engaged in a contest with Inuit
in snow-naming, please, discontinue it!
We can hardly compete
Using “slush”, “powder”, “sleet”…
You’ve got to be Inuit to win you it!

for imaginative rhyming and inspired silliness. (Alongside his limerick I must recommend this essay (PDF) on Eskimo words for snow.)

Second prize (A) goes to Lisa Liel:

Grammarians like to explain
That the verbing of nouns is inane
But friending is fine
It’s no different in kind
Than contacting me to complain

More sense in 25 words than you can shake a derivational suffix at. (Note: after the verb contact (in the sense get in touch with) arose in the early 20th century, it was “greeted with open hostility by purists for several decades”, according to Robert Burchfield.)

First prize goes to Paraic O’Donnell:

There was once a pig’s ear of a language,
Romance scraps in a Jerry-built sandwich.
Mostly used for rude jokes,
It became for some folks
Something nothing was seriouser than which.

for fine philological punning and wonderful syntactical funning that made me laugh much longer than I ought to admit.

Congratulations to Mike, Lisa, and Paraic, thanks to Stack Exchange for their generosity, and thank you all again for taking part!

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