Words with no rhymes

It may come to pass that the word "liege" cease to be archaic and irrelevant in contemporary discourse. Fingers crossed! But seriously though, if Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have their way...
 
Plinth seems like another challenging one.

As for Texas, Steve Miller Band committed the most egregious rhyme of Texas. Let that be today's rock trivia question.
Are you referring to the "Down in Texas" / "what the fact is" / "people's taxes"
Genius lyrics! ;)
Like coming up with word "Pompatus".
 
I would say "Abracadabra" "grab ya"
A definite contender. Also, El Paso with hassle.


Are you referring to the "Down in Texas" / "what the fact is" / "people's taxes"
Genius lyrics! ;)
Like coming up with word "Pompatus".
Yes! Though, if he really likes her peaches, he could just pluck one, rather than shaking her tree. That just creates waste and bruised fruit.
 
And the mention of El Paso reminds me of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, one of whose hits is "I'm just an asshole from El Paso."
 
And the mention of El Paso reminds me of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, one of whose hits is "I'm just an asshole from El Paso."
One of my roommates in college was from Taiwan. He had only lived in the US for a couple of years, but his English was quite good--for the most part. He once prefaced a note for another roommate with this: "Hey assohole..." Needless to say, we discussed this note at great length; but he refused to divulge whether or not the misspelling was deliberate.

Edit: We had different tastes in comedy, I think, but he was definitely the sort who could appreciate a response like, "Could you sound more Chinese-y?"
 
Last edited:
[...] But with dialects we encounter a variety of different pronunciations for words which "proper" dictionaries seldom seem to account for. I suspect that a lot of purportedly unrhymable words cease to be such if we broaden our consideration to include the thousands of regional dialects.

In turn, some regional differences could surely also alter or foul-up intended metre in verse, occasionally. I've encountered vocal quirks that probably don't stress the same syllables in "counterrevolutionary" (or whatever applicable word) that a dictionary universally prescribes. But OTOH, it's not like those nonconformists are destined to be reciting poetic works in public or on recording.
_
 
Back
Top