One of my limerick-writing pals has challenged me to hold a Double-Dactyl-Off. My initial response was “What the hell’s a double dactyl?”<\/p>\n
So I Googled it, read the rules, and attempted to write a couple of them myself. I’ll try to summarize the rules here and will provide links to some good resources and samples. (Don’t worry if you find the rules confusing. Once you read a couple of examples, they make more sense.)<\/p>\n
1) A double dactyl is a two stanza (eight line) humorous poem consisting mostly of dactyls. What’s a dactyl? A dactyl has three syllables, one stressed followed by two unstressed (\/ _ _ ).<\/p>\n
2) Line 1 is a nonsense phrase consisting of two dactyls (like Higgeldy Piggeldy<\/em> or Dickery Dockery<\/em> or Flippity Flappity<\/em>.)<\/p>\n 3) Line 2 is the name of a famous person (usually historic) but must be a double dactyl (like Emily Dickinson<\/em> or Joseph DiMaggio<\/em> or Hans Christian Andersen<\/em>.)<\/p>\n 4) Lines 4 and 8 must rhyme.<\/p>\n 5) Somewhere in the second stanza there’s is a double dactyl formed by a single word (like megalomaniac<\/em> or gubernatorial<\/em> or idiosyncrasy<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Here’s the form which I borrowed from Miss Rumphius<\/a>.<\/p>\n 1 – double dactyl nonsense phrase (like Higgeldy Piggeldy) 5 – double dactyl
\n2 – double dactyl of a person’s name
\n3 – double dactyl
\n4 – one dactyl plus a stressed syllable (\/ _ _ \/ )<\/p>\n
\n6 – double dactyl
\n7 – double dactyl
\n8 – one dactyl plus a stressed syllable (\/ _ _ \/ )<\/p>\n