To Bold or Not to Bold

Boldface is used in an OEDILF limerick, and only ever used in it, to highlight defined words. It follows that if we only bold occurrences of defined words in the limerick, then we shouldn’t bold puns or individual elements of compound words that aren’t actually the defined word.

Take, for example, a limerick defining account reconciliation containing the verb reconcile and the noun account. Account reconciliation is a compound noun that doesn’t mean the same as either reconcile or account; just because reconciling an account is what you do in account reconciliation doesn’t make the words the same, any more than you would bold cook and meat in a limerick about barbecue. We consider adjectival and adverbial forms different enough from their root words to warrant separate limericks, and would certainly say the same of nouns and verbs, so why should those different forms all get bolded in a limerick about a distinct word?

Or take a limerick on bulldog clip that makes a pun about a bulldog whose name is Clip. Clip isn’t a bulldog clip, he’s a bulldog, so a reference to him isn’t a reference to the defined word itself.

Remember, our limericks don’t have to include their defined words; what matters is that they define them well. People often resist unbolding words that look like the defined word but aren’t, because they think that an OEDILF limerick with no bold in it breaks a rule somewhere. It’s perfectly okay to leave words that aren’t actually the defined word unbolded, even if that leaves the limerick with no bold anywhere. My piece on character assassination, for example, contains the words character and assassinate, but doesn’t have any bolded words—because the defined word isn’t actually in it, even though the piece is all about it. Character isn’t a synonym for character assassination, and assassinate isn’t even a noun, but put the two in close proximity and you’re clearly talking about the concept.

In biographical limericks, where the defined word is the subject’s name, it’s important to remember that titles such as Saint, Dr, King, Sir, Capt. and the like aren’t part of names any more than Mister or Miss or Missus, especially as they change throughout a person’s lifetime—or in the case of Saint, after a person has died. Titles can go in the limerick or an Author’s Note, but should be kept out of the defined words; people searching for Agatha will find it just as easily as Agatha, St., and those searching for Saint Agatha will quickly realise that there’s no string of Saint Xs any more than King Ys or Professor Zs. When it comes to bolding the defined word in the limerick or Author’s Note, therefore, we shouldn’t bold titles either:

King Henry VIII was obese

Finally, in OEDILF limericks, any word used to refer to the word itself (what we call word as word) gets italicised, whether or not it’s the defined word, so sometimes a word will be italicised and bolded if it’s both word-as-word and the defined word. For example:

The words cat and rat both end in -at,
But this limerick defines only cat.
If you’re bit by a cat
It may leave you quite flat,
But if bit by a rat, why, that’s that.

Other defined words that will end up with both italics and boldface in their limericks include the titles of books, journals, newspapers, albums, movies, plays and television series.

Reworked from forum and workshopping comments from April 2005–August 2007.