XPost: alt.usage.english, rec.puzzles, alt.poetry   
   From: HenHanna@devnull.tb   
      
   On 5/12/2024 6:53 PM, Ross Clark wrote:   
   > Birthday of Edward Lear (1812-1888).   
   > A Book of Nonsense (1846) has 112 of them.   
   > But he didn't invent it, says Crystal, and cites:   
   >   
   > And let me the canakin clink, clink;   
   > And let me the canakin clink;   
   > A soldier's a man   
   > O, man's life's but a span;   
   > Why, then, let a soldier drink.   
   >                               (Shakespeare, Othello)   
   >   
   > Yah, OK, he didn't invent the metrical pattern or the rhyme scheme.   
   > But still -- The Limerick As We Know It?   
   >   
   > He also didn't name it. Name first attested 1896, several years after   
   > Lear's death.   
   > Origin of name -- Crystal has a story, can't be arsed repeating it. May   
   > check with OED.   
   >   
      
      
                          i don't know that expression.   
                          [can't be arsed ...ing it] -- is that NZ English?   
      
      
   what's the story?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)