Critical Analysis of "The Limerick Maneuver"

by Chuck Finn
Friend and Fan of Moristotle since 1974

Moristotle's limerick of last night—

A growing-old writer of limerick,
Being choked by a joke about Heimlich,
    Went into his mind,
    Reached round from behind,
And conjured this meter-and-rhyme trick.

—announces its theme and its dominant rhyme word only at the end of the second line. This immediately throws the reader into some consternation, since the last word of the first line, "limerick," doesn't rhyme with "Heimlich."

Or does it? The final line refers, self-referentially, to the limerick's "meter-and-rhyme trick" and offers the clue to add a hyphen to "limerick" so as to subtract a metrical beat and render the first line ending "lime-rick."

I've looked at the referenced blog and learned that the joke, rather like a limerick, rests on a pun on the Heimlich maneuver, which is a method of helping a choking victim to expel whatever is lodged in his or her throat by grasping the person around the chest from behind, locking hands at the solar plexus, and pulling back hard to force air up the victim's esophagus. In the joke, the victim expels the lodged bite of her sandwich when she is shocked by a redneck's yanking down her drawers and administering a quick "hind lick."

And another of the blog's readers, one Steve G, comments that a "hind kick" would also suffice. Therein seems to lie the inception of Moristotle's limerick, for in a comment after Mr. G's, Moristotle announces that he "feels a limerick coming on." And in his first version of the limerick, his third through final lines refer explicitly to that situation:

There was an old writer of limerick
Who, inspired by a joke about Heimlich,
    Here told his intent
    Then came back content
To display his meter-and-rhyme trick.

But he obviously wasn't content, for (as Serena herself acknowledges), his revision is "even better."

How is it better? It's better by adding a whole second layer of self-referentiality: the "lime-rick" itself as a Heimlich maneuver (heralded, in fact, by the limerick's title). The "growing-old writer" is now metaphorically choking on the joke (not just "inspired" by it).

And now he turns out to be the author of the limerick: he "conjured this meter-and-rhyme trick." But this limerick was written by Moristotle, who is, we see, the "growing old writer," the one who found himself "choking" on the joke in Serena's blog and wrote the limerick by way of performing a metaphorical Heimlich maneuver upon himself (by "going into his mind and reaching around from behind").

Serena gets the last words: "Yay, Mori"!