NaPoWriMo Day 23

I’ve had a silly project going with poet Trevor Millum, where we’ve emailed limericks back and forth - all with spellings based on the strangely pronounced/spelled place names and surnames we have here in the UK. For example: Cholmondeley (pr. ‘Chumley’) and Frome (pr. ‘Froom’). Here are the most recent 3 from me:

Young Jack, who resided in Slough

Went to market along with the cough

When he came back with beans

His mother sighed Teens –

I guess I’ll make chilli for nough.

A pirate who sailed down the Thames

Was planning to rob folk of ghames.

Whilst plotting these deeds

He got caught in some reeds,

And his scheme was upset by their sthames.

There was a young woman from Finzean*

Who felt she’d a talent for sinzean.

So loud was her voice

That none had the choice,

To hear it without their ears rinzean.

*Finzean is a village in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, said as ‘Fingin’.

Slough is said to rhyme with ‘now’, and the river Thames is of course pronounced as ‘Temz’