I’d wanted to select a place-name honoring the momentous popular revolutions sweeping the Arabic word – but I couldn’t come up with a suitable place. “Tripoli” and “Cairo” seemed too difficult to rhyme. But just when I was about to surrender and select a less newsworthy place, the perfect one popped to mind.

Our locale will be Tunis, the epicenter from which the revolutions have spread. If you’re more adventurous, you may instead use Tunisia.

Send me a PM with your offering.

Thanks! I think I'll stick with Tunis.

Yes, the times are interesting, both nationally and internationally. In the U.S., nationally we are seeing legislators fleeing their states to avoid being forced to vote on the budgets being proposed...

Cairo - Biro, giro, pyro, tyro...?

Tunisia to follow, although to my mind it's tricker.

That's why I am using Tunis...it's not so bad.

The only rhyme I can think of immediately is "newness"

Depends on whether you try to rhyme it as "tue-niss" or as "tune- iss" because then you have things like "do this", "view miss" etc.

Ooops! I was rhyming it with Cape Cod.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Depends on whether you try to rhyme it as "tue-niss" or as "tune- iss" because then you have things like "do this", "view miss" etc.

Although the stress is slight, I would say "TUN-iss" (although "Tun-ISS-ia).

Now, remember, this isn't OEDILF. We don't have to have perfect rhymes. So, anything rhyming with "tune" would work...adding an "is" or "es." I don't think it will be too hard.

But "Tune is" is a homophone of Tunis. To rhyme the initial letter must be different.

And most of the obvious words - like boon, coon and goon don't work in UK English, simply because Tunis is pronouced (in my part of England, anyway) as "TYOOnis", not "TOONis". However, alongside "newnness" I could think of a few more using separate words like "dune" and "hewn" that might fit.

TOONis for me

quote:

And most of the obvious words - like boon, coon and goon don't work in UK English, simply because Tunis is pronouced (in my part of England, anyway) as "TYOOnis", not "TOONis".

They still rhyme, though. It's only the vowel sound that has to be the same - the consonant sound before the vowel doesn't matter. "Tune" rhymes with "moon" in the British pronunciation as well as the American one.

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:

quote:

And most of the obvious words - like boon, coon and goon don't work in UK English, simply because Tunis is pronouced (in my part of England, anyway) as "TYOOnis", not "TOONis".

They still rhyme, though. It's only the vowel sound that has to be the same - the consonant sound before the vowel doesn't matter. "Tune" rhymes with "moon" in the British pronunciation as well as the American one.

I would call it a near rhyme. A;though the letter "y" is technically a consonant it has many vowel-like characteristics and to me the sound "yoo" is quite different from the sound "oo". I know that for some, words like "mew" and "moo" are pronounced much the same - but not in my part of the world.

If everything in life was easy it wouldn't be any fun, would it?

Allowing for variant pronunciations and for near-rhymes, I'd think the possibilities include:

BU-nis: baboon is; boon is
BLU-nis: blueness
CU-nis: coon is; raccoon is; tycoon is; cocoon is; impecunious
DU-nis: dune is
Eunice
FU-nis: buffoon is; typhoon is; fewness
GU-nis: lagoon is
JU-nis: june is; jejuneness
LU-nis: loon is; lunac-y; balloonist; balloon is; doubloon is;
MU-nis: moon is (“moon” as noun); moon us (“moon” as verb); honeymoon is; immuneness
NU-nis: noon is; afternoon is; newness; blueness;
PU-nis: lampoon us; harpoonist; harpoon us; oppugn us;
PRU-nis: prune is
RU-nis: rune is; quadroon is; octoroon is; maroon is; macaroon is;
SU-nis: soonest; bassoonist; bassoon is; monsoon is
SPU-nis: spoon is
STRU-nis: strewn is
SWU-nis: swoon is
TU-nis: tune is; tune us; opportunist; attune us; cartoonist; cartoon is; importune us; spittoon is; platoon is
TRU-nis: trueness; untrueness; poltroon is

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:
It's only the vowel sound that has to be the same - the consonant sound before the vowel doesn't matter. "Tune" rhymes with "moon" in the British pronunciation as well as the American one.

I would call it a near rhyme. Although the letter "y" is technically a consonant it has many vowel-like characteristics and to me the sound "yoo" is quite different from the sound "oo". I know that for some, words like "mew" and "moo" are pronounced much the same - but not in my part of the world.

I don't think I've come across the claim that "moon" and (British) "tune" didn't rhyme before. Flanders and Swann, those most British of songwriters, certainly thought so:

It's a satellite moon,
It's a plagiarized tune...

Or let's pick a word where the "y" sound is present in both UK and US pronunciation, such as "view". Are you claiming that it doesn't rhyme with "crew"? Lewis Carroll thought so:

Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
Which consisted of chasms and crags.

(From the Hunting of the Snark - recently discussed!)

As I wrote, I reckon they are near-rhymes. Close enough for most purposes but not perfect for my southeast English ear, Lewis Carrol notwithstanding. I would say that "crew" rhymes with "clue" and "view" rhymes with "queue" ("croo" and "cloo" versus "vyoo" and "kyoo").

Tune and June, similarly, are not perfect rhymes - unless one agrees that "tunes" is pronounced as "toons" - which I do not.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Richard English,

Interesting. Does anyone else agree with Richard's judgement? It never occurred to me that "crew" and "view" were anything less than perfect rhymes. All the online rhyming dictionaries I can find list them.

I think you need to be careful with the likes of RhymeZone. For "view" it lists crew as a perfect rhyme, Crewe (which is identical to crew in my version of English) as a near-rhyme and cue ( a perfect rhyme to me) as a near rhyme.

I have several rhyming dics but find it is easiest to use RhymeZone, taking into consideration their flaws.

For me, tune and June rhyme perfectly, whilst tune and moon do not (near-rhymes). With crew and view, I find that the y has a smaller effect, and these are near enough perfect rhymes to my ear.

I think it's fair to say that we all have different pronunciations of many words, and it's almost impossible to convince others that our own interpretation is the correct one, despite the fact that we all know it to be so.

And...remember...this is not OEDILF. We are going for fun here...not perfect rhymes (which to some aren't perfect anyway). BTW, there are some classic rhyming dictionaries out there, beyond the online rhymezone. The one we have is quite well respected (Whitefield's University Rhyming Dictionary), and yet I am not sure I agree with all their U (you) rhymes: "KU - coo, coup, q, Q, cue, queue, skew, aku, baku, cuckoo, coo-coo (slang), askew, barbecue." People's pronunciations are just so different. We'll never agree on every word. Near rhymes are fine.

The issue I'm raising here isn't one of how people pronounce words, though. It's which words they consider to be rhymes, given a particular pronunciation. I think all of us here probably pronounce "crew" and "view" in much the same way - the first with a pure "oo" vowel, the second with a "y" sound before the same vowel. Yet it seems that some people regard them as rhymes, others don't. That must mean that some people have a different concept of "rhyme" from others.

According to Wikipedia, "two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical". As far as I'm concerned, "crew" and "view" fit this definition - the final stressed vowel is "oo" in both cases, and there are no following sounds to take into account. The "y" sound is irrelevant, because it comes *before* the stressed vowel, not after.

The "y" sound is technically known as a "semivowel" rather than a consonant, and
I appreciate that some people might regard the "yoo" sound as a rising diphthong rather than a consonant-vowel combination. But the stress is still on the "oo" part, so I don't believe that it affects the rhyme.

I'm no expert on phonetics, though. Is there a definitive answer?

quote:

The "y" sound is technically known as a "semivowel" rather than a consonant, and
I appreciate that some people might regard the "yoo" sound as a rising diphthong rather than a consonant-vowel combination. But the stress is still on the "oo" part, so I don't believe that it affects the rhyme.

I agree except insofar as I do not agree that dipthongs can rhyme with pure vowels.

quote:

For me, tune and June rhyme perfectly, whilst tune and moon do not (near-rhymes).

For me June and moon are perfect rhymes and neither rhymes with tune.

Mind you, in the UK we have probably the widest range of regional pronuciations of any country - certainly of any country as small as ours.

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:
... "view". Are you claiming that it doesn't rhyme with "crew"? Lewis Carroll thought so:

Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
Which consisted of chasms and crags.
(From the Hunting of the Snark)

What an inspired find, Guy. You spurred me to look for a moon/tune rhyme among the literary lions. It is with pride that I report this, Swinburne, Prologue to The Two Noble Kinsmen:

Below the singing stars the cloud-crossed moon
Gave back the sunken sun's a trembling tune.

I agree with you, Richard: it ain't perfect.
I agree with you, Guy: it's good enough, by a wide margin.

Geez 24 responses to the word to write the limerick about. Not bad, Shu! You should come around more often.

I'll get mine to you.

I'm quite interested in this topic so I took it to the linguistics newsgroup sci.lang - you can read the thread here. There's a certain amount of technical vocabulary but I think most of the discussion is suitable for non-specialists.

Interesting discussion, Guy. Maybe some of those posters would like to join us here? We'd love a few more people to schmooze with.

BTW, I am pretty happy with my submission! I know, though, that Richard won't vote for it because one of the rhymes isn't "perfect".

I'm not sure if you'd really want the forum overrun by a bunch of academic linguists!

One newsgroup you might be interested in is alt.usage.english. It's not as technical as sci.lang, and is aimed at anyone with an interest in the English language and how it's used. I used to participate quite a lot.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Interesting discussion, Guy. Maybe some of those posters would like to join us here? We'd love a few more people to schmooze with.

BTW, I am pretty happy with my submission! I know, though, that Richard won't vote for it because one of the rhymes isn't "perfect".

I might - it depends on its other virtues. As you know, I choose not to vote for my own - and I have submitted for this placename - so I will have to select another's entry.

quote:

As you know, I choose not to vote for my own

Thou doth protest too much....

Is one allowed to vote for one's own entry, then? Surely that renders the whole game rather pointless, since (as far as I can tell) most people voting will have also submitted an entry.

People voting for their own limericks is rather difficult to police, but is generally considered to be very bad form.

If there were large numbers of voters - a hundred or more - to vote for no more than a dozen limericks then it wouldn't matter. As it is the numbers of voters is roughly equivalent to the numbers of limericks submitted, so if we all voted for our own there would never be a result.

quote:

People voting for their own limericks is rather difficult to police, but is generally considered to be very bad form.

Oh, I don't think so, Mike. If you really prefer yours to any of the others, I say go for it. I just never have preferred one of mine since everyone here is so talented!

Now, Shu, can we vote?

No not yet - I've only just discovered the game. I keep waiting for notification by email in the previous game (for which I have notifications by email on) that the new game is open, but it seems not many people do that. Eventually I realise the game may already be underway and check in to see, as I just did. I need 24 hours at least.

OK - I've put one in.

Re - voting for your own. We have had this discussion many times. I really don't want to hear it again (except when a new member asks the question). Frankly I don't think anybody here actually does vote for their own, but if you honestly think yours is the best, I don't see anything wrong with voting for it. When I really believe mine is clearly the best, which I think may have happened once, I simply abstain from voting.

quote:

When I really believe mine is clearly the best, which I think may have happened once, I simply abstain from voting.

In that case, I'd say go ahead and vote for your own. It's not like there's a huge award for the winner!