The Meaning of "Rhyme"

[Baker, John]

        Well, Weingarten is a humor columnist (and a pretty good one, I
would say, though he isn't to everyone's taste).  I don't think he would
have a problem with ribald comment.  I'll pass on the "assonate"
suggestion.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 10:34 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: The Meaning of "Rhyme"

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"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------

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/DI200
6=
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

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