A limerick is a particular style of humorous verse which originated in Ireland (Limerick is a town's name). It always contains 5 lines. The first, second and fifth lines should rhyme, and so should the third and fourth lines (which are shorter). The longer three lines normally each have between 7 and 9 syllables (they should have the same number, but sounds can be changed sometimes). The shorter two lines normally each have 5 or 6 syllables. However, strict rules are not followed. The word order can be changed around and some unusual grammar or pronunciations can sometimes be used. The most important thing about a good limerick is that it should have something clever or funny about it.

A limerick usually describes a person. It often starts with a line such as "There was a young man from Peru": "young" could be replaced by any other adjective (for example: old, big, tall, wise), "man" could be any noun used to describe someone or an animal (for example: girl, boy, woman, bear), and "Peru" could be any town or country's name or could be anything else used to describe the person. Here is an example:

There was a young lady so bright
She travelled much faster than light
So she started one day
Running far, far away
And returned on the previous night

This one doesn't say where the person came from in the first line, but instead describes her as "so bright". This description is playing with words: the word "bright" can mean either "intelligent" (the normal meaning when applied to a person) or "shining" (as in the phrase a "bright light"). Note that the first, second and fifth lines rhyme (bright, light, night), and so do the third and fourth (day, away). A second example:

There was an old man from Gloucester
And a beautiful girl he did foster
But she fell from his yacht
And this buoy marks the spot
Where the grieving old man says he lost her

This one isn't funny, but can be used by an English teacher to show how difficult it can be to guess how English words are pronounced from their spellings. Gloucester is the name of an English town. You might think it would be pronounced "glue-ses-ter", but actually it is pronounced as "gloss-ter" and therefore rhymes with foster (a foster parent is someone who takes care of another person's child for some reason). The pronunciation of "beautiful" is also not obvious from its spelling, and neither is the pronunciation of "yacht" (it sounds like "yot", and therefore rhymes with "spot", which in this case means place). A "buoy" is a floating object used to mark somewhere in the sea, but a more natural spelling would be "boy". The last line only rhymes with the first two because the first letter of a word starting with "h" is sometimes dropped in songs or in conversation. In this case the last two words must be pronounced as "lost-er". A final example:

There is a young man from Japan
Who writes limericks which never do scan
As for his rhymes, well I'm sorry
But they make me feel poorly
And in the last line he just puts in as many words as he possibly can

This one breaks all of the "rules" about the structure of limericks, but that is what makes this one clever and amusing. The first, second and fifth lines do not have the same number of syllables, so the rhyme doesn't occur where the listener expects to hear it; the last line includes far too many sounds to make this clear. The third and fourth lines don't rhyme either, although the clever point is that they might do when a Japanese person tries to read them (because the "l" and "r" sounds are the same in Japanese). This limerick makes fun of the kinds of mistakes which a foreign student of English might make if trying to write a limerick. Limericks are often rude or make fun of people, but try not be offended by them: they are never meant to be taken seriously!