On The Meaning of Manurial

Sisyphus, The Dung Beetle

It’s been something like thirty years since I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote the following limerick but, for some unknown reason, it popped into my head a couple of days ago and I can’t shake it. I’m interpreting this to mean I have to share it now. First, a smidgeon of background.

A long-time, close friend had heard the word “manurial” and thought it was kind of funny. Frankly, I have no recollection of the context in which it came up; perhaps it was on a late night talk show the previous day. He wondered about its actual (not supposed) meaning and, alas, it was before the Internet. We did not have a dictionary immediately at hand. Now, this friend was one of those people who’s constantly coming up with ideas, but seldom following through with them. That night, as I lay in bed, I suddenly had an inspiration and felt compelled to pen a limerick. This is what I wrote:

Our Loren though entrepreneurial,
Is, nonetheless, quite mercurial.
His numerous Schemes
Drive us mad ’til it seems
We can’t help but think he’s manurial.

There! I’ve now recorded it for posterity. I can’t believe I’ve carried that one around in my head for all these years. I also wrote one about a guy I worked with whose last name was Luckett, but you can probably figure out how that went, though I believe I was able to avoid the use of “Nantucket”.

There were others. Maybe I’ll recall them as well some day. Please don’t hate me.