Talk:Eye rhyme

Eye rhymes from literature
This page would be much more useful if it listed eye rhymes that actually occur in famous poems. The grounds for inclusion in the current list aren't very obvious, and there are lots of eye rhymes in English to choose from... LachlanA 02:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing rhymes with "orange"
—Preceding unsigned section header added by 64.208.90.82 (talk) 22:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Not necessarily true. This quote is taken from the Wikipedia article on rhyme.  Some words in English, such as "orange", are commonly regarded as having no rhyme. Although a clever poet can get around this (for example, by obliquely rhyming "orange" with combinations of words like "door hinge" or with lesser-known words like "Blorenge", a hill in Wales), it is generally easier to move the word out of rhyming position or replace it with a synonym ("orange" could become "amber").  Thanks.  (Joseph A. Spadaro, 6 September 2009)


 * Also ... below is another short poem that is often used to dispute the claim that nothing rhymes with "orange". Thanks.  (Joseph A. Spadaro, 6 September 2009)


 * As for me, I find it more enj-
 * -oyable to eat the orange.


 * Wiktionary gives "Gorringe" (a surname) as well as "Blorenge" as true rhymes for "orange". &mdash; 217.46.147.13 (talk) 12:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Shakespeare Rhyme
So, how was it originally pronounced? "Flies" like "fleas"? Or "enemies" like "enemice"? Or both different altogether?

And how do the linguists know which one it is? --91.34.34.57 (talk) 19:21, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

To the same topic: The text says: but as a result of the shifts in pronunciation since then, the original rhyme has been lost. In general language, this is of course true. But wouldn't an actor, when acting Shakespeare today, get around this by artificially, as it were, pronounce "enemies" as "enem-eyes"?--2001:A61:3A23:6001:CCD9:D141:4434:1A65 (talk) 15:03, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

In the musical play Kiss Me, Kate actor Fred Graham sings the lyric:

Where is the fun I used to find? ''Where has it gone? Gone with the wind.''

… And repeats it three times during the song, i.e., it's hard to miss. It happens that he's portraying Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew, a Shakesperian play-within-the-play. Therefore, his character is using the archaic pronunciation of "wind" with a long "i" sound.

Rather quirky to use what's now a sight rhyme in spoken — nay, sung thrice — dialogue, but Cole Porter could do that. WHPratt (talk) 15:30, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Lestrade and Sherlock
I recall, imperfectly, a rather simple poem that used eye rhymes to present a word in two different pronunciations. It’s a Sherlockian jest, based upon the fact that Inspector G. Lestrade is a supporting character in the Sherlock Holmes canon. The pronunciation of his name is handled differently by two popular portrayers of the Great Detective in radio.

It goes something like:

Basil Rathbone speaks like God

As he pronounces it “Lestrade.”

But Sir John Gielgud won’t be swayed

As he pronounces it “Lestrade.”

I’m rather sure that I read it in an issue of The Baker Street Journal, but couldn’t find it in my collection. If anyone can do so, it might be an interesting addition to the article. WHPratt (talk) 04:26, 16 July 2022 (UTC)