“Ludicrous to think that the word you mean is one that happens to share a final sound with one you’ve just used. What sense does that make?” This quote, from a review in The New Yorker by Kamran Javadizadeh, got me thinking. What is the value of rhyme? It is certainly fun and an effective memory aid. Examples:
- Playing “The Name Game” using Chuck. Fun! “Banana, Fanna Fo…”
- Your name is Berman and your high school friends call you Sperman. Fun, I guess.
- You’re a girl with the last name Spitz and having developed at an early age you are the subject of many schoolyard rhyming epithets (figure it out genius). Fun then, offensive now.
- Memorizing life-saving facts: “The chalice with the palace has the pellet that is poison. The vessel with the thistle has the brew that is true!”
- Keeping Kosher. “Whenever we sit down to eat, we don’t have milk when we have meat!”
Hey look: I’m a poet and I don’t know it! (But my feet show it!)