forehead: the little girl with a little curl right in the middle of hers

[Charles Doyle]

That's an important point commonly overlooked by literary scholars. The only really "perfect" rhyme would be a repitition of the same word (in the same syntactic position, etc.)--which is usually not thought of as a rhyme at all. Otherwise, we're loosely weighing the relative "closeness" among a range of phonological features.

Also, since no rhyme is perfect, one must be cautious about using rhymes to establish historical pronunciations.

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 00:32:04 +0200
>From: Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>

>
>Depends on what you mean by "rhyme." Do "basket" and "brisket" rhyme?
>
>dInIs
>
>
>
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>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>Subject:      Re: forehead: the little girl with a little curl right in the
>>               middle              of hers
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Sorry, Ron. It's gotta be  /'farId/  to rhyme with "horrid."
>>
>>   Someone once averred to me that "fore-head" amd "horrid" don't
>>rhyme at all.  Well, duhhhh!  Not for that kind of individual!
>>
>>   JL
>>
>>RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
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>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM
>>Subject: forehead: the little girl with a little curl right in the middle
>>of hers
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>It of course has to be [forId] to rhyme with "horrid."
>>
>>In a message dated 4/4/08 12:20:32 PM, cdoyle at UGA.EDU writes:
>>
>>
>>>  Case in point . . . .
>>>
>>>  Just a few moments ago in class, mentioning some prominent imagery patterns
>>>  in a Jacobean play, I pronounced the word "forehead" in my customary way,
>>>  [farId] (the second vowel may be a barred-"i"). Half the students
>>>professed not
>>>  to know what word I was uttering; the other half delicately referred to my
>>>  pronunciation as "something out of _Deliverance_"). And this is in Georgia!
>>>
>>>  --Charlie
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>--
>Dennis R. Preston
>University Distinguished Professor
>Department of English
>Morrill Hall 15-C
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
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