James Baquet

    Mark comes into the dorm’s common room and sees Ming working on something.

    Ming: “Roses are red, violets are blue…” Umm, “Roses are red…”

    Mark: Hi, Ming. What are you doing?

    Ming: Oh, hi, Mark. Next week is my girlfriend’s birthday, and I’m trying to write her a poem.

    Mark: Using “Roses are red, violets are blue?” Oh, Ming, that’s so corny!

    Ming: Really? I thought it was pretty original.

    Mark: It could be if, for example, you made some changes.

    Ming: Like what?

    Mark: Maybe change the color? Like: Roses are red,/Olives are green./ You are the prettiest/I’ve ever seen.

    Something like that.

    Ming: Hey, great idea! “Roses are red, violets are purple…”

    Mark: Oh, no, Ming!

    Ming: What’s wrong?

    Mark: You’ve just chosen a color with no perfect rhyme.

    Ming: What do you mean?

    Mark: There’s no way to end that poem. Nothing rhymes with purple!

    Ming: Really? What about… Let me see…

    Mark: I assure you, Ming: There’s no such word. And it’s not alone. “Silver” and “orange” have no common rhymes, either.

    Ming: What do you mean, no common rhyme?

    Mark: There is a very old-fashioned word for a young, female sheep, called a “chilver.” But no one knows that word.

    Ming: So if I said: Roses are red/ Earrings are silver/ You are as cute/ As a new-born chilver.

    She probably wouldn’t get it?

    Mark: I’m absolutely sure she won’t.

    Ming: Ok. How about “Roses are red, oranges are orange…”

    Mark: That’s not going to work, either.

    Ming: There’s no rhyme for “orange?” But it’s a common color. It’s in the rainbow!

    Mark: I know. There is another obscure word, “sporange,” but no one knows it.

    Ming: What is it?

    Mark: A “sporangium” is part of a fern plant; “sporange” is an alternative form of “sporangium.”

    Ming: No wonder no one has heard of it! It’s a rare form of a rare word!

    Mark: That’s right. By the way, there are lots of familiar words with no common rhyme.

    Ming: For example?

    Mark: Well, month. And circle. Film. And here’s a surprising group: breadth, width, and depth.

    Ming: I guess the -th is a problem?

    Mark: That’s right. It happens with some numbers ending in -th, too: eighth, twelfth, words like that.

    Ming: When you say, “They don’t rhyme,” what do you mean, exactly? Couldn’t we say “silver” rhymes with any word ending in -er?

    Mark: No, it’s generally agreed that the rhyme needs to start with the last accented syllable.

    Ming: Well, thanks, Mark.