Text Completion Guide - Vocab usage help

[fbmagnumopus]

Hi!

this sentence is from pg 208 in the text completions guide. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it.

Far from being atypically bawdy, this limerick is a paradigm of the form - nearly all of them rely on off-color jokes.

I saw a similar expression - 'paradigm of the form' in the paper based test. SO what form exactly are we talking about here and could you please help me break down this sentence?

[tommywallach]

Hey FB,

Far from X = The thing I'm describing is so dissimilar from X, I want to draw special attention to HOW dissimilar it is.

The meaning here is that a certain limerick is not ATYPICALLY bawdy, but TYPICALLY bawdy (i.e. all limericks are bawdy). Hence, the limerick in question is a paradigm (perfect model) of the limerick form.

Make sense?

-t

[fbmagnumopus]

Yup, makes sense now! Thanks for breaking that down Tommy! I never thought I'd be able to decode such a 'twisty' sentence (as Jen Dzuira puts it) but now it makes sense.

[tommywallach]

Glad to help!

-t