My mother kept everything - clothes, toys, books - so there is a cache of smocked dresses, metal Tonka trucks, old blocks, odd dolls, and kid's books at her house. And books and books and books. I found a somewhat idiotic little book while there the other day, called "I Like The Farm".
It's a short picture book from 1961 with rhyming couplets:
Hill - Bill
Cat - Hat
Cow - Mow
Doo - You
Be - Me
Horse - Course
Wet - Bet
Jim - Him
Pup - Up
Will - Hill
Cat - Hat
Cow - Mow
Doo - You
Be - Me
Horse - Course
Wet - Bet
Jim - Him
Pup - Up
Will - Hill
Okay then. What's the problem here? COW does not rhyme with MOW. Do you think that they thought they could away with a bad rhyme just because the words are spelled similarly?
Edited to add:
Doo = Cock-a-Doodle-Doo. I suppoose I shouldn't have shortened it; I did it for the aesthetics.
5 comments:
Ah, it was 1961. You've got yourself some commie propaganda, there. The author wanted kids going around talking about Mao. How sneaky.
But what is Doo?
Hahahahahah! That is just so idiotic!
And what's up with this doo/you rhyme?
I mean they do rhyme, but couldn't they have found a word that the kids were likely to find in other books they read? Like: too, shoe, Sue, glue, new, or even do?
OK, not to be a pendant, but I am going to be a pdeant for just a second: I think the mow/cow rhyme could be called an "off rhyme" (meaning, of all things, it does not really rhyme) or an "eye rhyme" (meaning of course it looks like it should rhyme but does not really). My understanding is that "eye rhyme" is a sort of category of "off rhyme." You are so right that, especially in this case where the other rhymes are so pure, this one is a cop out. But some poets (and of course I can't think of any real examples right now) have written entire poems with JUST off rhyme.
OK, I'll shut up now.
Hello! Good to catch up with you after being gone.
About this book... perhaps it is British. I have a book about Mabel and the tower of Babel, that apparently rhymes if you are British. And what is a mow anyways if it is not what you do to your lawn?
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