Rhymes with "orange"

[Baker, John]

        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.

        It doesn't sound right to me to rhyme a word with itself, even
if it's preceded with a prefix, such as quicksilver.  Silver, however,
does have a rhyme:  chilver, a provincial English term meaning a
ewe-lamb or one-year-old ewe, or ewe mutton (according to the Century
Dictionary).

        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.


John Baker

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