The Meaning of "Rhyme"

[Grant Barrett]

It's hard to muddle through what Weingarten's saying there, since his
idea of humor is about as sharp as a plastic spoon. I think a great
deal of his chatter is intended to mock or belittle people who claim
certain words rhyme, when he doesn't think they do, but he does it in
such an unsignaled fashion it's hard to tell whether he agrees or
disagrees.

When he posted his "Rhymes With Orange" column he and I had a back-
channel conversation in which he claimed his definition of "to rhyme"
required more than consonance of terminal sounds. He said, "A rhyme
must begin with, and include, the last stressed syllable of the words."

Maybe that will help clear up what he intends to say.

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org

On Oct 2, 2006, at 00:33, Baker, John wrote:

> Remember Gein Weingarten, the humor columnist who recently wrote a
> column about the pronunciation of "what"?  He has been discussing
> pronunciation issues in his online chat (his views are fairly
> similar to Tom Z's).  What I find really striking, though, is his
> consistent use of "rhyme" to mean "sound like."  For example, he
> writes, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/
> 2006/08/23/DI2006082300429.html, "Mary is pronounced the way you
> guys pronounce all three of the words. So we have that one out of
> the way. To you, Mary rhymes with marry and merry."  His usage is
> most striking in his online poll, where one of the questions is:
>
> <<3. The middle syllable of the word "piano":
> a. Rhymes with "stare."
> b. Rhymes with "bat."
> c. Rhymes with "on."
> d. "Stare" and "bat" rhyme! And they BOTH rhyme with the middle
> syllable of "piano.">>
>
> Is this just an idiosyncrasy, or are there others who use the verb
> "to rhyme" in the same disturbing way?

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