24 November 2006

What's this then..

You know, sometimes when things rhyme, they don't exactly rhyme...? Stuff like:

I love you dear
more than a bear


or

you are my sweetie
I'll say it in graffiti


(well, that last one sort of rhymes, but...)

What I need is the word for the kind of rhymes that don't really rhyme... In Norwegian it's "emergency rhyme" -- only it doesn't sound quite so ridiculous in Norwegian.. Anyone?

My favourite songwriter, Lars Lillo-Stenberg (Norwegian, you guessed it!) once said something like; "It's not necessarily [emergency rhyme] if it doesn't rhyme, as long as it fits the context - but if you have a perfect rhyme that's just thrown in there for the sake of rhyming, then you've got yourself an [emergency rhyme]."


(He'll have words like - and I freely translate - "sent her" rhyming with "centre", and would never just throw in an "abuse" to go with "accuse" if he feels "misuse" would be more accurate...)

So I might have got the definition wrong. But I'd still like the English word for it. And it's not too late (Claire...), the next edition isn't due before March. What you get in return? I'll have to think about that...

I know -- you get to write your own, almost-rhyming poems right here in the comment section!

2 comments:

Merujo said...

Check this page out - look to the section for "not-quite-rhyme." Quite possibly more information than anyone ever would need, but kinda interesting, too!

Claire said...

Looks like Merujo's link covers it all. As for words that sound the same but are spelled differently (here, hear) and have different meanings, I'd call them homonyms rather than any sort of rhyme.

At first glance, consonance seems to be what you're looking for though it might not cover everything an "emergency rhyme" covers.