The whole 'Just Bail' Idea related to something one of the guys I know from my accommodation, who once said 'let's just bail' at a party, and so it stuck, and got written on a large board and put in the window. It was then at a recent poster sale that we saw a 'keep calm' poster, and decided to change it. It was initially going to be 'Just Bail', but this would not fit with the whole idea of an odd number of lines, so the expletive got added. We are now planning on getting the poster printed up at A2 or A1 size, and put on the kitchen wall.

I have now had a tinker with the old photoshop, and have made something else. Hopefully you'll all find this one more to your liking.

Ignore the above. This is actually the link.

[FGZ] You want to put up that helpful new tube map you've been working on...

And I thought that bailing, or bailing out, was a nautical term . . .

So if Obama bailed out the banks, does that mean he dumped all the water out of them?

I believe that in the form stated it is more a metaphor for removing someone from the tender mercies of the law by posting a bond so that they don't have to sit in a cell until they are called to answer for their deeds. Of course, the financial "experts" behind the whole meltdown will never be called to answer for their deeds, so it all metaphorically falls apart. Rather like The Bailout.

This is enlightening: bale or bail

Wouldn't "Bale Out" be some sort of harvest-related activity, possibly taking place in WWII and involving steam tractors and Land Girls?

And I thought it would be taking blocks of hay out of the barn.

The phrase finder site is great! It is often a start for my research on the origins of phrases when I write that type of article, and often quoted as the source as many sources are mentioned on the pages.

I was at Liverpool Street station at the weekend, and was mildly shocked (although not, being me, actually offended) to walk past a (shut) kiosk proudly displaying a greetings card with the message "KEEP CALM AND FUCK OFF" to any and all passers by. I suspect that Mary Whitehouse would not have approved...

[jim] I suspect you are right. Nothing good ever came of telling that lady to keep calm.

Yes, I believe she formed a campaign originally entitled Clean Up National Television.

TLA has just been closed. Any ideas for a new game?

I think that I shall never see
A purple cow that looks like thee
This poem is a pure mess
With lots of apologies to Gilet Burgess.

Well, we could... Could someone just go over the rules quickly? It's been so long.

[KagomeShuko] See: The Obligatory Limericks Game Reincarnated

Though to be fair I saw no problem with your mother's snoring since it followed the same beat as my favourite limerick by Spike Milligan:
Things that go bump in the night
Should really not give one a fright
It's the hole in each ear
Which lets in the fear
That, and the absence of light

If we've got to the point where people would object to Spike if he were to post that, we are in trouble.

If we've got to the point where Spike posts that, then the dead are walking the earth and we have greater worries than scansion.

True. :/

Is it just me who uses the apostrophe there?

[Pen] Surely it should be 'Hallow'e'en'

Missing S & missing V? Perhaps. But it's deffo not the way Hallmark spell it.

[Pen] I was starting from 'All Hallows Eve' but then had to account for the final 'n' so I've taken Halloween to be an abbreviated form of 'All Hallows Eventide'.

[penelope] You've missed the apostrophe from penelop'

[Phil] I've missed a lot of things in my time. *sigh*

I'd be grateful for more movers and shakers in the limericks game please - to set good examples of rhyming and scansion to those perhaps less accustomed to the sound and feel of a good limerick, and perhaps also to show Marc that there are other subjects apart from sex to be limericked, and repeated references tend to make people drift away from the game.

[Pen] That's unfair to Marc. You have to go back over 20 screens and 50-100 moves to see the last time he tried anything even remotely naughty. And he got told off last time as well. By you...

Really? Apologies if it seemed unjust - but I have that impression. I will try to adjust my stance.

Though not, perhaps, in singling out Marc. I think there have a few too many somewhat coarse limericks across all the servers recently. We need a few rules of thumb here like:
- First lines ending 'Phuket' (or Nantucket, etc.) are never going to be funny
- Filth is always funnier if it's not signalled in advance.
Add your own.

(INJ) I agree more or less with your filth stance though if someone puts up an obviously dirty first line there is a strong temptation to carry on with the bawdiness. Unexpected filth is much funnier; years ago on PantsMC I put up the innocent first line:
"There was a young fellow from Streatham strettum", which was followed by
"Who chewed off his bollocks and ate 'em"
Aha, I thought, this is good.
The worst thing about too many of the current limericks is the lack of rhythm. I look at them and groan and think "Why bother?"

(INJ, Rosie et al.) Agreeing with the aforementioned points of lax scansion and over-active glands; but I would add that limericks which start with an obvious hope that they'll end up coarsely can be funny when subsequent moves elegantly sidestep it.
However, everything in moderation...

I like the sidestepping thing. It seems particularly English and I find I use it a lot here - especially as I'm in the lavisicous hotbed of the Netherlands and sometimes pretending to be more archetypally (sp?) English than I actually am seems to be the only way to avoid lowering myself to their standards. Oh. That means I am very English after all, doesn't it?
(And that rumour about the Dutch being liberal and easy-going? Don't believe a word of it. Most of them are Calvinists. It's a more conservative and male-dominated business and academic environment than any I have encountered before.