Why rhyme?
Rhymes are everywhere. We hear them as nursery rhymes. We recite them in poetry. We sing them around campfires.
They’ve been around for millennia. The oldest ones were found in ancient Chinese songs books from the 6th century BC.
But why do we rhyme?
There is an aesthetic aspect: Rhyme, along with meter, provides patterns and symmetry. Rhyme can also add emphasis. As Strunk & White advised for writing in general: “Put the emphatic words of a sentence at the end”: the natural place where rhymes live.
Both are displayed in Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem If-:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating
Yet don’t look to good nor talk to wise
However, rhyme’s main purpose was not aesthetic. Throughout history rhyme served to aide our memory. Rhymes act as reliable mnemonic devices: Every child effortlessly remembers the dictum ‘I before E, except after C’1.
We remember rhymes more easily than random lists of words because they are linked together for us by sound2.
We remember things better when we have a relational understanding. This is largely what knowing an idea is all about: It includes knowing how an idea is related to other ideas. As Wittgenstein said:
“A wheel that can be turned though nothing else moves with it, is not a part of the mechanism”
We understand new ideas (and remember them) if we integrate them with our existing knowledge.
Mnemonic devices take advantage of this by emphasising arbitrary connections. This can be via shared letters (the three R’s in education; the four P’s in marketing; and the three R’s in waste management). It is also used when we create acronyms of the first letters of sets of words. (Roy G. Biv and educated mothers serving noodles).
And, of course, we rhyme.
The evolution of rhyme
An exciting process has occurred over the last few decades: Rhymes have evolved. The shift is largely due to the continued popularity of rap.
There are two main ways rhymes have shifted:
They're less strict, and
They’re longer than anything you’ll find in Dr Seuss.
The traditional view of a rhyme is an exact correspondence of sounds.
Cat rhymes with hat. Elf with shelf. Itsy with bitsy. Humpty with dumpty.
Correspondence between the end of the words is what matters: Moon rhymes with both balloon and afternoon despite having different syllable counts.
Non-exactness
The first way rhymes have shifted is that they are now non-exact: Cat rhymes with hat but it also rhymes with black and tap.
But don't we already have a word for non-exact rhymes?
Isn’t this just assonance?
Cat, black, and tap share the same short a sound. However, they have different ending consonants so they’re an example of assonance rather than rhyme.
We’ve known about assonance for centuries. It explains the catchiness of phrases like “there’s no place like home”, “let the cat out of the bag”, and “the early bird catches the worm”.
Why should we now refer to them as rhymes? Well, “cat” also has assonance with apple, bratwurst, and Mr Fantastic. But we wouldn’t call these rhymes.
It’s useful to think of “cat/black” as a rhyme as well as “apple/paddle” but to think of “cat/apple” as assonance. The first two examples get used the same way perfect rhymes get used. The usefulness in calling these non exact examples rhymes becomes more clear when we evaluate the second main shift in rhyming.
If you really want to insist “rhyme” only applies to exact correspondence and that anything else is technically a non-rhyme, then I won’t stop you. However, in a linguistic descriptivist sense, which is simply looking at how language is spoken, we may need to expand our definition: The way we use the word “rhyme” now tends to include non-exact instances.
The average person will agree that an Eminem verse rhymes.
But let’s take a look at his lyrics. Most of the rhymes are of the non-exact cat/tap variety, albeit usually more complicated.
Let’s take this well-known lyric from Lose Yourself:
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
Heavy does not perfectly rhyme with sweaty. It has a ‘v’ sound whereas sweaty has a ‘t’ sound. Yet we still call it a rhyme.
In most circumstances, it doesn’t make sense to distinguish “sweaty/yeti” (exact correspondence) from “sweaty/heavy” (non-exact). If we do want to make the distinction, we can simply label the first pair a perfect rhyme and the second pair a non-perfect rhyme (or an assonance rhyme).
However, we’ll refer to both as rhymes and, in general, won’t bother distinguishing them.
Multiple syllables
You may have noticed something else about those Eminem lyrics.
Let’s take another look, this time with the exhaustive set from the scheme:
His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He’s nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready
To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
The key insight is that the rhymes are not limited to the end words: Eminem is rhyming entire phrases.
Another thing we notice about this passage is he uses several internal rhymes. Sometimes they rhyme with each other (nervous/surface and knees/weak). Sometimes they rhyme with part of the main rhyme (bombs with mom’s, already with spaghetti/heavy).
The first insight is more important. In fact, it’s the most significant way rhymes have evolved: They now come in chunks.
They are chunks that usually come at the end of a line. Chunks that have the same stress patterns and number of syllables. Chunks that have rhymes lining up at more than one point.
In other words: Chunks that rhyme multi-syllabically.
We already implicitly appreciate this type of rhyming. That’s why those lyrics that we know and love sound good.
The jargon for this type of rhyme in rap is a "multi".
The multis3 that we looked at in the passage above were four syllables:
Palms are sweaty
Arms are heavy
Mom's spaghetti
Calm and ready
On forgetting
So if we wanted to add rhymes to this scheme they need to be four syllables as well. But not just any four syllables. Look at the following list and think why these don’t pair with Eminem’s scheme:
Stone is heavy
Speak already
Bright confetti
You will have noticed they don’t fit as their first syllable has a different sound.
Let’s look at a few more examples from Eminem to ensure we get a feel for it.
Here’s a random passage from the 1999 single Role Model:
I take a breather and sigh.
Either I'm high or I'm nuts
’Cause if you ain't tilting this room, neither am I
And the opening lines from the lesser known Rock Bottom on the same album:
I feel like I'm walking a tight rope without a circus net
Popping Percocet, I'm a nervous wreck
Here’s a two-syllable example from one of his early pre-written freestyles4:
My mom sent me up to the store with a food stamp
For a pack of cigarettes and a book at the news stand
It’s best to think of these rhymes as units. Similar to chunking in psychology where we package information together into bigger pieces. We can pack the related rhymes together into a unit and think of it as a single rhyme.
Think of “Food stamp” as a rhyme with the entire phrase “news stand”. Rather than components of the phrases rhyming with each other twice (“food” with “news” and “stamp” with “stand”). The multi is a single rhyme unit. Not a combination of rhymes.
Of course, it’s technically true that these phrases share single syllable rhymes. Indeed, that's why they are multis in the first place. Yet it’s best to think of them as a single rhyme. It may seem like a pointless distinction but it will help to think about rhymes this way5.
Don’t stress it
You will have noticed in the example lyrics above that not every syllable rhymes with each other. They don’t even rhyme in the non-exact sense that ‘heavy’ and ‘ready’ do.
For instance, let’s look at the Lose Yourself lyrics again:
Palms are sweaty
Calm and ready
Something is up with that darn second syllable. There's no way around it: ‘And’ and ‘are’ simply don’t rhyme6.
How come they’re allowed?
The secret is all to do with syllable stress. In that example, ‘and’ and ‘are’ are unstressed syllables. The sound of unstressed syllables doesn’t matter when determining a multi. Fortunately, that makes creating multis easier.
In this particular example, the ending syllables (the ‘ee’ sound from the ‘-y’s) are also unstressed. Unlike the second syllables, these ones do matter.
So the amended rule is: the sound of unstressed syllables doesn’t matter unless they come at the end of a line.
It’s the same for the other examples. For instance, in Rock Bottom:
circus net
Percocet
The middle syllable is unstressed so it doesn’t matter.
Sometimes the unstressed syllables will have the same sound.
circus net
nervous wreck
This may sound a little crisper but it isn’t a big deal. Don’t worry about the unstressed syllables that aren’t at the end. Percocet fits this scheme just fine.
(To be clear, there are no official rules given down from above. I’m judging what ‘counts’ as a multi based on general usage. According to the way multis get used in general, the sound of unstressed syllables don’t matter.)
Sometimes there may be more than one unstressed syllable wedged between stressed syllables. Again, the sound doesn’t matter. The important thing is that there are the same number of them.
Here’s an example from the rapper Earl Sweatshirt’s song Chum:
Searching for a big brother, Tyler was that
[…]
Too black for the white kids, and too white for the blacks
From honor roll to cracking locks up off them bicycle racks
This stress pattern is stressed, two unstressed, and then stressed again.
The rhyme is really more like:
TYler was THAT
WHITE for the BLACKS
BIcycle RACKS
(But remember, don’t think of it as seperate rhymes ty/white/bi and that/black/racks. Think of the phrases as instances of a single rhyme.)
The battle rapper Shuffle T has useful notation. For this particular Earl Sweatshirt rhyme, it would be:
Where the x’s stand for unstressed syllables. The stressed syllables signal what vowel sound they belong to. “I” as in "time”, and “AH” as in “cat”.
So ‘time to attack’ would fit this scheme. Yet ‘timely feedback’ wouldn’t, even though it has the ‘I’ sound in the first slot and the ‘AH’ sound in the last slot. It’s second to last syllable is stressed. It would instead be:
I-x-EE-AH
(In practice we may see these sort of rhymes used in a scheme. Either as a near rhyme or by amending the natural pronunciation.)
We can use this notation for other rhymes we have seen:
ER-x-EH: circus net/Percocet/nervous wreck
EE-x-x-I: breather and sigh/either I’m high/neither am I
U-AH: food stamp/news stand
The notation is useful as it highlights the rhyme as a unit. Shuffle T happens to be one of the few others who evaluate modern rhyme. He’s a comedic English battle rapper (think Ricky Gervais fused with some MC Hammer shit). His podcast, book, and YouTube game show, are useful resources which make many similar points to this post.
The main reason unstressed syllables don’t matter is they all sort of collapse into the same sound.
This is called a shwa which is represented in linguistics by an upside-down e, like this: ə. It sounds like the short ‘u’ sound - ‘uh’ - but is softer and weaker. Unstressed syllables are said faster and more quiet than stressed syllables. As a result, they lose their natural vowel sound and collapse into the schwa.
As English is not phonetic, we see different letters representing schwas. For instance:
⟨a⟩, as in about
⟨e⟩, as in taken
⟨i⟩, as in pencil
⟨o⟩, as in memory
⟨u⟩, as in supply
On English’s famous spelling inconsistencies, George Bernard Shaw famously quipped that the word “fish” could be spelled like “ghoti”.
The “gh” taken from “tough”; the “o” taken from “women”; the “ti” taken from nation: fish.
Now English isn’t actually that lawless (a word ending in ‘ti’ never gets pronounced as an ‘f’ sound) but we take Shaw’s point. As is the bane of many language learners, English spelling is inconsistent. Watch out for that in rhymes.
It’s probably too obvious to bear mentioning, but rhymes are concerned with sounds not spelling.
Unstressed syllables won’t always be schwas. But they still don’t matter for multis. The vowel sound still isn’t stressed so won’t throw off the rhyme.
Not all multiple syllables are multis
Some two-syllable words that rhyme don’t count as multi-syllabic rhyming. In fact, most two syllable words don’t count.
How can that be? Well, it’s a corollary of our focus on stress.
Most two syllable words only have one stressed syllable. Nouns and adjectives usually stress the first syllable. Verbs usually stress the second.
That’s why we have different pronunciations for homonyms depending if they are a noun (the SUSpect’s CONduct was an INsult) or a verb (I susPECT if I conDUCT a search it will inSULT him).
As we’ve covered, multis are concerned with stressed syllables. This means rhyming ‘Later’ with ‘Hater’ isn’t really a multi.
Traditionally, this type of rhyme is called a double rhyme or a feminine rhyme (ie, a rhyme that ends with an unstressed syllable). A single syllable rhyme by itself is called a masculine rhyme.
(These rhyme types are only gendered to emphasise they’re different types.)
So, in terms of multis:
And remember the consonants don’t have to be exact so ‘might later’ also goes with white paper, lifesaver and ice-breaker. And ‘late fees’ also goes with make peace, clay feet and Dre Beats.
As can be seen in the infographic above, and from our examples pulled from songs, there are different types of rhymes based on different stress patterns.
Recap
What we’ve learned so far:
We don’t need exact correspondence
Stressed syllables are what matters
Total syllable count must line up (including unstressed syllables)
We should think of multis as a chunk that rhymes with another chunk
There are different types of multi-syllabic rhymes based on different stress patterns.
Types of rhymes
Now we can look at different types of rhymes. Rhyme types differ according to the number and pattern of the stressed and unstressed syllables7.
It’s useful to name these different rhyme types. That way it’s easier to spot and discuss them. It further cements that they should be treated as a unit.
We will follow two principles in naming them: (1) the name will be self-exemplary. Namely, it will be an example of the rhyme type. And (2) the name will describe the shape of the rhyme’s stress pattern.
(I’m not hugely tied to these names and I am open to better ones.)
Goal post
Let’s start simple and look at a two syllable multi first. We’re going to borrow from Shuffle T and call this syllable pattern, 🌑 🌑, a goal post. ‘Goal post’ is itself a goal post rhyme. Further goal posts visually represent the stress pattern: the two posts can stand for two stressed syllables.
🌑 🌑
Goal post
Told jokes
Rolled oats
Old folks
Out of the examples we’ve already seen, ‘food stamp/news stand’ and ‘soul train/gold chain’ are both goal post rhymes.
Remember not to conflate these with double (ie feminine) rhymes. ‘Taken/bacon’ isn’t. ‘Takes time/baked pie’ is8.
Micky Mouse
Let’s move up to three syllables. We have the Mickey Mouse rhyme. It’s not described as micky mouse in the informal sense of being inferior or insignificant).
It’s to do with it’s shape. It is three syllables with the middle one unstressed: 🌑 • 🌑 which looks a bit like the silhouette Micky Mouse Disney logo.
And of course ‘Micky Mouse’ follows the stress pattern as well:
🌑 • 🌑
Micky Mouse
Busy crowd
Figure out
Written downIH-x-OW
You may have noticed that the sound of the middle unstressed syllable seems to matter in this example, contrary to our earlier advice. Namely, the “ee” sound in the first two examples feels a little awkward with latter two.
If you want to be strict, you may impose this constraint on yourself. Generally, they all get used together and there’s no issue.
Cliff hanger
We then have a cliff hanger rhyme. Three syllables again, but ending on an unstressed. It’s sort of a goal post mixed with a feminine rhyme.
🌑 🌑 •
Cliff hanger
Mick Jagger
Risk factor
Fish batterIH-AH-er
Even though it’s unstressed, the sound of the final syllable kinda sorta matters. Again, it depends on how strict you want to be. But you’ll generally see matched final syllables if they’re at the end of the line.
It can be useful in notation to signal this. So Pig latin/big cannon/with passion/ship captain would be IH-AH-en, an ever so slightly different scheme. But it could likely be used along with the Mick Jagger/fish batter/IH-AH-er scheme (especially if they don’t fall on the end of the line).
Up and downer
Then we have an up and downer. Four syllables alternating in stress.
🌑 • 🌑 •
Up and downer
Sudden shower
Russian counter
Muscle powerUH-x-OW-er
Other potential names might be: Rocky Mountain or Alternator.
Like the cliff hanger rhyme, the sound of the final unstressed syllable often matters if it ends a line. So ‘arms are heavy’ can be noted as AR-x-EH-y and ‘scarlet letter’ can be AR-x-EH-er.
Skating the pipe
We have another four syllable rhyme type. The “skating the pipe” rhyme. The stress pattern follows a halfpipe.
Unfortunately, the phrase ‘half pipe’ is itself a goal post rhyme, so I’ve gone for the slightly more awkward ‘skating the pipe’ so when you say it, you know exactly what it is. This is especially useful as the Micky Mouse rhyme also resembles a halfpipe, albeit a narrower one.
🌑 • • 🌑
Skating the pipe
Days of our lives
Breaking the ice
Stadium lightsAY-x-x-I
From the earlier examples we’ve already seen Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘white for the blacks’/‘bicycle racks’/I-x-x-AH and Eminem’s ‘breather and sigh’/‘neither am I’/EE-x-x-I.
Lucrative lyric
Let’s look at our first rhyme type with five syllables (but still with only two stressed syllables).
🌑 • • 🌑 •
Unfortunately, this one’s a little hard to name. It's an odd shape and less phrases fit the stress pattern. It’s essentially a skating the pipe rhyme that ends on double rhyme. For example, the phrases ‘skating the valley’ and ‘skating the mountain’ fit it.
This rhyme pops up more than you’d expect so it’s a shame there’s no obvious name. Many English phrases fit the stress pattern too: sleep with the fishes; saving the planet; going the distance; deep in the moment; speak of the devil; and, under the weather.
I’ve tentatively given it a name based on Eminem’s verse in Jay-Z’s song Renegade he maintains one of these rhymes (among others) for most of his verse:
🌑 • • 🌑 •
Now who's the king of these rude, ludicrous, lucrative lyrics?
Who could inherit the title, put the youth in hysterics
Three blind mice
Let’s go back to three syllables but this time all of them stressed.
We can call this the Three Blind Mice rhyme:
🌑 🌑 🌑
Three Blind Mice
Steamed white rice
Seems quite nice
This one is easy to conflate with a Micky Mouse rhyme (not just because we’re talking about mice). The difference between them obviously being the stress on the middle syllable.
No name rhyme types
Adding more syllables sees the number of combinations significantly increase. I won’t bother listing them out let alone naming them all.
Here are a few random examples from rap songs:
🌑 • 🌑 • 🌑
OW-x-AY-x-I
Without a way to fight
Alligator Fights
Talladega Nights🌑 • • 🌑 • 🌑 •
AH-x-x-O-x-AH-xWrap ya in rope and plastic
Stab ya with broken glass and
Have ya with open gashes
Strapped to a soaking mattress🌑 • • 🌑 • 🌑
AH-x-x-U-x-EETrapped in a lucid dream
Strapped to a huge machine
Acne Removal Cream
As you’d expect, these longer rhyme types are less common so we can get away without having names. When we’re dealing with rhymes this long we’re probably comfortable with them anyway.
Another way to think of them could be as compounds of the smaller multis. For instance, Talladega nights/Alligator fights are sort of two Micky Mouse rhymes joined together but share the middle stressed syllable. A “double micky mouse” if you will.
The second example, wrap ya in rope and plastic, is a ‘skating the pipe rhyme’ (wrap ya in rope) joined with an ‘up and downer’ (rope and plastic), again sharing the stressed syllable on the join.
Sometimes you’ll see these longer ones rhymed with shorter multis which are components. ‘Trapped in a lucid dream’ might be rhymed with ‘strapped to a huge machine’ but then later just with ‘gruesome scene’.
A multi rhyme starts on a stress
This can be a little confusing for newcomers when they see examples. Some words begin with unstressed syllable (e.g. supply, abort, ). If these words begin a multi, the rhyme actually starts on the stressed syllable.
So the goal post rhymes high fives/Mai Tais/high tides go with supply lines. The first syllable in ‘supply lines’ is unstressed so isn’t included as part of the multi unit.
Similarly, the cliff hanger rhymes short fiction/court system/four kittens/OR-IH-en go with abort mission.
And the ‘skating the pipe’ rhymes made in japan/taking a stand/AY-x-x-AH go with Canadian flag.
As we’ve seen, unstressed syllables are included in the multi unit when they come in the middle or the end. But multis start on stressed syllables.
Here are the rhyme types we’ve covered limited to the vowel sounds “AY” as in cake and “OR” as in lord.
🌑 🌑 Skateboard/Train floor/Shane Warne
🌑 🌑 • James Cordon/Main portion/Game warden
🌑 • 🌑 Jason Bourne/Praise the lord/State of war
🌑 • 🌑 • Take an order/Main supporter/Paid informer
🌑 • • 🌑 Same as before/Paying the course/Basic reform
🌑 • • 🌑 • Famous performer/Fatal disorder/Canadian border
Now what?
So there we have it: an introduction to multi-syllabic rhyming. Feel free to file this away next any notes on puns and scrabble.
If you write song lyrics or poetry, try and incorporate multis. See how it sounds and if it’s for you.
There is still plenty to cover when it comes to rhyme, although i’m aware it’s a pretty niche topic. If you’re interested in learning more:
What makes a good rhyme? (unfinished)
Mixing up stress
The relevance of consonants
Most common rhyme types
Which rappers rhyme the most
Thanks to the idiosyncrasies of the English language, it’s difficult to remember instances when this rule of thumb does not apply. Fortunately there’s another rhyme to remember some of them: ‘or when sounding like A, like neighbour and weigh’.
Represented by the funny ligature of a and e (æ) by the international phonetic alphabet.
Pronounced “multies”.
Freestyle is another concept in rap that’s no well understood. The problem is that it refers to two things: (1) off-the-top improvisational rapping, and (2) pre-written verses without choruses that can be rapped over any instrumental.
I think the lack of doing this explains why even rap fans often fail to discriminate multi rappers from non-multi rappers. There are myriad rhyme highlight videos which are quite good but don’t emphasise chunks. These videos often conflate rhymes that are part of the scheme with those that aren’t. And ones that are obviously intended and ones where it’s less clear.
You may also have quibbles with calm/arm/mom/on actually rhyming. I admit, maybe this example was needlessly confusing as it partly depends on your accent. I can assure you that they are intended as rhymes, and if you listen to how Eminem says them, they are they same sound.
To add more confusion, there’s actually secondarily stressed syllables: syllables that are stressed but not quite as heavily as the main stress. For example:
volunteer
● • 🌑
and:
inspiration
● • 🌑 •
To keep things simple, we’ll just worry about stress (either main or secondary) and unstressed. So the above examples would be VOL-un-TEER and IN-spir-A-tion.
There is the further complication of rhyming a feminine rhyme with a goal post which I’ve written about here.