Rhyming 'orange'

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In the context of Mark's latest, I cannot resist telling you about the one moderately successful rhyming of orange by a poet that I know about. The poet was my friend Tom Lehrer, the mathematician / singer / songwriter / satirist / musical theater expert, who has for decades now divided his time between Cambridge MA and Santa Cruz CA. And his poem only works for those American dialects in which the first syllable of corrugated has an unrounded low back vowel (it is basically homophonous with car), and in which the last syllable in I pray to heaven above rhymes the last syllable in you're the one I'm thinking of. Check your dialect to make sure you speak that way (if you don't, then this is all wasted time for you), and if you do, here's the poem (though you'll probably complain that it cheats):

Eating an orange
While making love
Makes for bizarre enj-
oyment thereof.

Yes; I knew you would object to that line break… But be fair. It actually rhymes, if you say it right. Give credit where it's due.

See now this post by Mark on another rhyming triumph by Tom Lehrer.



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