Talk:List of closed pairs of English rhyming words

Background

I have started the article "List of closed pairs of English rhyming words", which is based largely on the discussion archived at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 February 13#Words with exactly one rhyme.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:49, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

flawed

The first example, acid & placid disregards flaccid. The page seems un-sourced and flawed. If anything, it belongs at wiktionary. μηδείς (talk) 05:07, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

μηδείς, I have removed the entry "acid, placid" after checking dictionary listings via http://www.onelook.com/?w=flaccid&ls=a. I pronounce a double "c" before an "e" or an "i" as "x" in "box" (compare "accent", "accept", "accident", and "occident"), but I found several dictionaries that also have the double "c" in "flaccid" pronounced as "s" in "asset".

—Wavelength (talk) 00:32, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I have never heard flaccid pronounced otherwise. I believe there are a few other such not actually exclusive pairs. I am not an exclusionist, but I think this list is borderline. Since Wiktionary does deal with rhymes, I suggest it might do better there.

You can hear the sound of "ks" in "flaccid" at http://www.forvo.com/search/flaccid/.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:24, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh well, both "acid" and "placid" rhyme witj "miacid", so the paor should be thrown out anyway. 2601:9:4901:A200:CD40:4BC1:63B7:F8F4 (talk) 15:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Bailiff has primary stress with a short final i, while caliph rhymes with "the beef". I suggest plugging one of each of these pairs ino the wiktionary rhyming dictionary and seeing which come up with two forms that don't disagree between NA and Insular English. μηδείς (talk) 01:12, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

You can hear "caliph" pronounced in two ways at http://www.forvo.com/search/caliph/, and Wiktionary mentions both of them. Neither source mentions it rhyming with "the beef".

—Wavelength (talk) 01:29, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

The citation form has an initial ash vowel, but it's reduced to a schwa in spoken American English. μηδείς (talk) 02:59, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

American Heritage Dictionary Entry: caliph has the stress on the first syllable (kā´lĭf, kăl´ĭf).

—Wavelength (talk) 03:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't doubt that it has multiple pronunciations, and it is not central to my point, but Sharif and Caliph shuhREEF and cuhLEEF rhyme in my dialect, and neither with sheriff. Given that according even to Arabic phonology "The final heavy syllable of a root is stressed.[10]" this is not surprising. μηδείς (talk) 03:26, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you able to link to an online source that supports your pronunciation of the English word "caliph"?

—Wavelength (talk) 03:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• In addition to Tamfang's comment, there are also:

balance, valance but talents

bandit, pandit but pandit=pundit with an intial schwa

boarish, whorish but gorish, Moorish

bonnet, sonnet but on it

bubblish, publish but the first word has 3 syllables (bubble-ish, not bub-lish)

Bulgar, vulgar but Bulgar=Bəlgar (rhymes with dull car) not "bul-ger", as in someone who bulgs.

etc., and so-forth. Merriam-Webster gives flassid as the primary pronunciation of flaccid. (Flaxid seems to be a spelling pronunciation. Simply given huge dialectal variation the issues seem intermountable for a worldwide audience. μηδείς (talk) 03:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I hope to discuss these examples by tomorrow. Dialectal variation does not seem to be a problem for "List of English words without rhymes".

—Wavelength (talk) 04:05, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is my reply to your post listing six pairs.

• The pair "balance, valance" is disqualified because of "imbalance". Some speakers may differentiate between the presence and absence of the sound of "t" in "balance, valance, talents".
• The pair "bandit, pandit" is disqualified because the first vowel sound in "pandit" (and in "pundit") is the open-mid back unrounded vowel, represented in IPA by a turned v (that is, ʌ). That vowel sound is different from a mid-central vowel, a schwa, represented in IPA by a rotated lowercase letter e (that is, ə).
• The pair "boarish, whorish" is disqualified by "Moorish", in which the double "o" can be pronounced like the "o" in "go" or like the double "o" in "too". I found "gorish" only in Urban Dictionary. Of all the dictionary entries to which http://www.onelook.com/?w=whorish&ls=a links, wikt:whorish appears to be the only one with the label "Vulgar". I do not consider the word to be vulgar, but the fact that someone does could be a reason for excluding that pair.
• The pair "bonnet, sonnet" is not disqualified by the two-word expression "on it", because the list is for single words only.
• The pair "bubblish, publish" is not disqualified by the uneducated pronunciation that you suggest. The word "bubble" has two syllables because English speakers have difficulty pronouncing the word otherwise. However, adding the suffix "ish" or the suffix "ing" eliminates the second vowel sound of "bubble" and changes the sound of the "l" (the ell). Here are some words with their numbers of syllables: "cycle" (2), "cycling" (2), "pedal" (2), "pedaling" (3), "medal" (2), "medalist" (3), "juggle" (2), "juggler" (2). I have not found a dictionary definition for "bubblish" anywhere, so this pair is disqualified at this time.
• The pair "Bulgar, vulgar" is not disqualified by the pronunciation whose last syllable rhymes with "car", because there is another pronunciation whose last syllable rhymes with "cur", according to wikt:Bulgar.

Accordingly, I have removed the first three pairs and the fifth pair.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:54, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

*i(s)sect

For at least some people, bisect and trisect rhyme with dissect. —Tamfang (talk) 03:17, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I have removed "bisect, trisect".—Wavelength (talk) 03:48, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Is this article worth preserving?

As I read the growing lists pointing out flawed pairs in the article, I have to ask "Is this article worth preserving?" Pete unseth (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia has flaws; should it be preserved? There is no need to throw out the baby with the bath water.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

But is this article about something noteworthy? Is there enough baby here to prevent us from throwing out the bathwater? Pete unseth (talk) 19:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

English

Book Kushwant Kumar (talk) 15:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)