The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #82010 Message #1876708
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
05-Nov-06 - 11:06 AM
Thread Name: worst rhyme ever
Subject: RE: worst rhyme ever
Several distinct reason why people say somethings a "bad rhyme".
One is where the words in question just don't rhyme. But sometimes this criticism is misplaced, because in English there are a wide variety of varieties of rhyme, and the "perfect rhyme" is only one of these - and not always the best one to use.
A too perfect and predictable rhyme can in fact come across as trite. And in fact some of the examples of "bad rhymes" offered up in this thread fall into that category - perfect but trite.
And there are perfect rhymes which are in a way the opposite of that - they are so unexpected they come across as forced and over artificial. Which is OK as a comic device, but lianbkle to be disastrous in other contexts.
And there are rhymes which work in some accents/dialects, but not in the one used by the critic. (I'd say that "warrior" and "bore ya" probably fall that category, since many Americans do seem to pronounce "warrior" as "wore-ya" where the English would say worr-ya.)
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One way of getting away with a rhyme using an unusual word, when you don't want it to sound comic, is to use the unusual word first, and the common word as the rhyme, rather than the other way round.