For 50+ years I’ve been fascinated by Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with its mishmash of interior rhymes. One in particular “..get sick, get well, hang around the inkwell….” rhymes the same word “well” with itself but in two distinct meanings - cured and reservoir. The entire lyrics of the song, sung at its ripping tempo almost becomes a tongue twister.
Once again I’m reminded of an observation that poetry/lyrics are processed and even stored in a separate part of our brains than prose. My relative who suffered catastrophic brain damage and barely able to construct two word sentences was fully capable of reciting nursery rhymes, Christmas carols etc. learned in childhood long before her Injury.
Yes, log, cog and bog rhyme, but dog definitely not. It's pronounced with the tongue higher and the lips rounded ("dawg"), at least where I grew up (northeast U.S.)
A nitpick: the onset isn't "irrelevant for rhyming". Most English speakers would not say that words rhyme with themselves nor that homophones do. Whereas rimes must agree, onsets must not in order for (perfect) rhyme to happen.
Somewhere I read that oral history usually employs rhymes, and that the rhymes enable accurate transmission over 1000’s of years with little oral drift.
Excellent piece. It made me wonder, do the French terms of rime pauvre, rime suffisante, and rime riche help here? Rather than asking whether phonological correspondence is structurally complete, they focus on how much sound material is actually shared (roughly one, two, or three+ phonemes). It shows us how correspondence can reach back into the onset, via the consonne d’appui. Another angle on what rhyme can be.
I have theory on the appeal of rhyme. I believe it works—for us speakers of Modern English anyway—because it sets up and satisfies an expectation. For the same reason, slant rhyme—in the hands of, say, Emily Dickinson—can be unsettling because it approaches perfect rhyme, but misses. On a different note, you mentioned several words that amount to rhyming pairs: hoity-toity, for example. I love this kind of word, the reduplicative, and I wrote a whole column about it: https://open.substack.com/pub/mindinclined/p/whats-your-favorite-word-d59?r=44ohic&utm_medium=ios.
Fascinating Colin, thanks very much for writing. As a secondary/high school English teacher, your post has given names and structure to stuff I see in the class all the time.
Fascinating! Latin poetry is quantitative and doesn’t rhyme. Is this because it’s inflected, or, put another way, do we have rhyme because English isn’t inflected in the same way?
In Latin and ancient Greek vowel length was phonemic, i.e. it made a difference in the meaning of words (for example, Latin "anus", with a long "a" has the same meaning as in English, but with a short "a" means "old woman".) The contrast between long and short syllables must therefore have been very striking to speakers of those languages, and during the classical period was used as the organizing principle of poetry, first by the Greeks, later copied by the Romans. But the ealiest Latin poetry rhymed, as did medieval Latin poetry ("Dies irae, dies illa/Saeclum solvit in favilla/Teste David et Sybilla").
Thanks for that. I knew about the earlier rhymes, and that the Latin form was strongly influenced by Greek. But there a conscious choice not to rhyme and to exploit instead quantity of the words? And why the syllabic verses such as hendacasyllables? Were they originally Greek, too?
My understanding is that the Romans copied quantitative verse whole-hog from the Greeks, and all the various metres and categories of poety (except satire) as well. How the Greeks got started I don't know.
The whole idea of phonemic vowel quantity is really interesting. I don't know if there are any modern languages that use it; I believe that there are some Southeast Asian languages with this feature, but I can't find a reference. Perhaps our host will favor us at some time with a deep dive into the subject!
Thank you for explaining why the "word families" I teach - at, bat, cat, that - are called "onset rimes." I have been annoyed all this time by "rime" not spelled right.
For 50+ years I’ve been fascinated by Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with its mishmash of interior rhymes. One in particular “..get sick, get well, hang around the inkwell….” rhymes the same word “well” with itself but in two distinct meanings - cured and reservoir. The entire lyrics of the song, sung at its ripping tempo almost becomes a tongue twister.
Once again I’m reminded of an observation that poetry/lyrics are processed and even stored in a separate part of our brains than prose. My relative who suffered catastrophic brain damage and barely able to construct two word sentences was fully capable of reciting nursery rhymes, Christmas carols etc. learned in childhood long before her Injury.
I suspect you will hear this from others, but dog doesn’t rhyme with fog in my accent.
And I tried so hard to find one that would work for everyone! I added a footnote asking for indulgence for my Canadian-ness :)
It does rhyme in most American accents, though. Even the Southern ones go dawg, fawg, hawg, etc.
Yes, log, cog and bog rhyme, but dog definitely not. It's pronounced with the tongue higher and the lips rounded ("dawg"), at least where I grew up (northeast U.S.)
Mine, either.
A nitpick: the onset isn't "irrelevant for rhyming". Most English speakers would not say that words rhyme with themselves nor that homophones do. Whereas rimes must agree, onsets must not in order for (perfect) rhyme to happen.
The most impressive dactylic rhyme I know is this gem of a couplet from Byron's Don Juan:
But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
Yes, indeed. But read that in public in the poet's homeland today and PC Plod will arrest you for doing a hate crime.
Go on, give it a go.
Somewhere I read that oral history usually employs rhymes, and that the rhymes enable accurate transmission over 1000’s of years with little oral drift.
Extra challenge: what is the only word in the English language which has 0 other words to rhyme with it?
Going out on a limb here, but I think there are two - "silver" and "orange".
Desilver, resilver, quicksilver (but I suppose they all still have 'silver')
Melange (depending on accent).
My word is "month"
[Edit: then I discover it rhymes with many "-illonth" words, like billionth, trillionth, gazillionth etc!]
I love your posts! They are the things I didn’t know I wanted to know. Every time! 😍
Nice piece. wrote about multisyllabic rhymes in rap which you might be interested in
https://falliblepieces.substack.com/p/rhymes-from-dr-seuss-to-dr-dre
Excellent piece. It made me wonder, do the French terms of rime pauvre, rime suffisante, and rime riche help here? Rather than asking whether phonological correspondence is structurally complete, they focus on how much sound material is actually shared (roughly one, two, or three+ phonemes). It shows us how correspondence can reach back into the onset, via the consonne d’appui. Another angle on what rhyme can be.
So, these are the rules of rhyme for English. Do they apply to every language? If not, to any other language? Cheers!
I have theory on the appeal of rhyme. I believe it works—for us speakers of Modern English anyway—because it sets up and satisfies an expectation. For the same reason, slant rhyme—in the hands of, say, Emily Dickinson—can be unsettling because it approaches perfect rhyme, but misses. On a different note, you mentioned several words that amount to rhyming pairs: hoity-toity, for example. I love this kind of word, the reduplicative, and I wrote a whole column about it: https://open.substack.com/pub/mindinclined/p/whats-your-favorite-word-d59?r=44ohic&utm_medium=ios.
But what about "mavity"? :)
Fascinating Colin, thanks very much for writing. As a secondary/high school English teacher, your post has given names and structure to stuff I see in the class all the time.
A non-rap musician that makes good use of rhymes is Robbie Williams
Fascinating! Latin poetry is quantitative and doesn’t rhyme. Is this because it’s inflected, or, put another way, do we have rhyme because English isn’t inflected in the same way?
In Latin and ancient Greek vowel length was phonemic, i.e. it made a difference in the meaning of words (for example, Latin "anus", with a long "a" has the same meaning as in English, but with a short "a" means "old woman".) The contrast between long and short syllables must therefore have been very striking to speakers of those languages, and during the classical period was used as the organizing principle of poetry, first by the Greeks, later copied by the Romans. But the ealiest Latin poetry rhymed, as did medieval Latin poetry ("Dies irae, dies illa/Saeclum solvit in favilla/Teste David et Sybilla").
Having missed out on a classical education, it is for erudite insights such as this that I subscribe to this publication.
Thanks for that. I knew about the earlier rhymes, and that the Latin form was strongly influenced by Greek. But there a conscious choice not to rhyme and to exploit instead quantity of the words? And why the syllabic verses such as hendacasyllables? Were they originally Greek, too?
My understanding is that the Romans copied quantitative verse whole-hog from the Greeks, and all the various metres and categories of poety (except satire) as well. How the Greeks got started I don't know.
The whole idea of phonemic vowel quantity is really interesting. I don't know if there are any modern languages that use it; I believe that there are some Southeast Asian languages with this feature, but I can't find a reference. Perhaps our host will favor us at some time with a deep dive into the subject!
I hope so! Thanks for taking the trouble to respond. I might even pursue this myself!
Thank you for explaining why the "word families" I teach - at, bat, cat, that - are called "onset rimes." I have been annoyed all this time by "rime" not spelled right.