Should Rhymes Include Only Real Words?
Dec 8th, 2009 by MPC Press
My mother has never been a Dr. Seuss fan. I don’t think she has a problem with the stories and the pictures. But, she prefers the dictionary as it stands and has no appreciation for made up words, especially when taught to children. I can understand her view, and because of this (and out of respect for her), all of my rhymes in Lawrence the Laughing Cookie Jar and Rhyme pair “real” words (yet some of these words are proper names). One definition of a rhyme is, “a poem or verse having a regular correspondence of sounds, especially at the ends of lines.” So, Dr. Seuss has every right to rhyme “the far-away Island of Sala-ma-Sond” with “king of the pond” and “Gertrude McFuzz” with “That’s all there was” and “Jungle of Nool” with “cool of the pool”; these certainly are corresponding sounds, even if they aren’t truly words. My mother’s opinion, though, is that, when you have an opportunity to teach real vocabulary to children, why make up words? Of course, making up words for the sake of rhyme is often the result of an inability to create a rhyme with real words. But I don’t think Dr. Seuss had this problem, or did he? Taking this a step further, we have all read what are supposed to be rhymes that pair words such as “town” and “ground”. Is this a rhyme? Some argue “yes” because the sounds are similar. I don’t know if there is an official answer. Just as I am not sure if I’m Polish or Austrian, as my ancestors emigrated to the U.S. from Krakow in the mid-19th century when Krakow was part of the Austrian empire.
