The Meaning of "Rhyme"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Assonance is traditionally considered to be an "alternative to rhyme," in the words of M-W, but I've heard it called a "form of rhyme" as well.

  Either way, he's talking about assonance, and the word he should use is "assonate."

  But that would be a) a "hard" word that his readers don't want to know about, and b) susceptible of ribald comment, which he doesn't want to encourage.

  Hence "rhyme."

  JL

"Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Baker, John"
Subject: The Meaning of "Rhyme"
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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/DI2006=
082300429.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:
=20
<<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.">>
=20
Is this just an idiosyncrasy, or are there others who use the verb "to =
rhyme" in the same disturbing way?
=20
=20
John Baker
=20

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