Rhymes with "orange"

Sally Donlon sod at LOUISIANA.EDU
Mon May 1 17:25:22 UTC 2006


OK, back to "chamber."

How about:

The killer checked the chamber,
Found a bullet primed and waiting.
He fired, didn't kill but maimed her,
And ran off into the sunlight fading.

Close enough for rock-and-roll?

sally




On May 1, 2006, at 11:07 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

> On May 1, 2006, at 8:36 AM, John Baker wrote:
>
>>         For orange, at least, there's a classic nursery rhyme:
>>
>> What is the rhyme for porringer?
>> What is the rhyme for porringer?
>> The king he had a daughter fair
>> And gave the Prince of Orange her.
>>
>
>> ....        In addition to orange and silver, purple is a third
>> color that
>> is traditionally considered unrhymable, but Louis Sachar came up with
>> this clever rhyme in Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger:
>>
>> The baby won't stop crying.
>> His face is turning purple.
>> Will anything make him feel better?
>> I bet a burp'll.
>
> more instances of needing to be clear about the rules of the game.
> the last lines of both verses are unacceptable for most modern
> english speakers, though they have substructures that are fine in
> other versions or in other contexts.
>
> the first has a double-object construction (with the first object
> referring to the recipient of the transfer, the second to the thing
> transferred).  the construction is famous for being unacceptable when
> the first object is nonpronominal and the second is a personal
> pronoun, as in the verse.  "and gave the Prince of Orange his
> daughter" is fine, though.
>
> the second has Auxiliary Reduction (here, "contraction" of "will") in
> a Verb Phrase Ellipsis context, the most famous context that
> disallows AR for most people.  "i bet a burp'll help", is fine,
> though.
>
> this is entertaining play, but not quite fair.
>
> arnold
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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