Editing Eye rhyme

{{Short description|A rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
An '''eye rhyme''', also called a '''visual rhyme''' or a '''sight rhyme''', is a [[rhyme]] in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently.<ref>{{cite news|title=Rhyme|work=Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia|edition= 6th (2011): 1. MAS Ultra – School|page=23|date=2012}}</ref> 

Many older [[English poetry|English poems]], particularly those written in [[Early Modern English|Early Modern]] and [[Middle English]], contain rhymes that were originally true or full rhymes, but as read by modern readers, they are now eye rhymes because of [[Sound change|shifts in pronunciation]], especially the [[Great Vowel Shift]]. These are called historic rhymes. Historic rhymes are used by linguists to reconstruct pronunciations of old languages, and are used particularly extensively in the [[reconstruction of Old Chinese]], whose writing system does not allude directly to pronunciation.

==Historic rhymes==
One example of a historic rhyme (i.e., one that was a true rhyme but is now an eye rhyme) is the following:

{{Quote|text=The great man down, you mark his favourite '''flies''';<br />The poor advanced makes friends of '''enemies'''.|character=Player King|author=[[William Shakespeare]]|title=''[[Hamlet]]''|source=act III, scene II}}

When ''Hamlet'' was written {{Circa|1600}}, "flies" and "enemies" rhymed in local dialects, but as a result of the shifts in pronunciation since then, the original rhyme has been lost.

Another example of a historic rhyme is the following:

{{Quote|text=Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms '''obey''';<br />Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes '''tea'''.|author=[[Alexander Pope]]|title=''[[The Rape of the Lock]]''|source=canto III}}

When the poem was published in 1712, the word "tea" (which is only attested in English from about 60 years before) was often pronounced "tay", as it still is in certain dialects; the pronunciation "tee" predominated from the mid-18th century.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tea |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/tea#etymonline_v_7650 |website=Online Etymological Dictionary |accessdate=19 August 2020}}</ref>

===Conventional historic rhymes===

Historic rhymes that were lost phonetically in the Great Vowel Shift were sometimes retained as conventional rhymes. For example, in 1940, [[W. H. Auden]] wrote:

{{Quote|text=Let the Irish vessel '''lie''',<br />Emptied of its '''poetry'''.|title="In Memory of W. B. Yeats"}}

This represents the same historic rhyme as "flies" and "enemies" above, even though by the 20th century "lie" and "poetry" had long since ceased to rhyme. (When Auden himself read the poem aloud, he pronounced "lie" and "poetry" in the usual, non-rhyming 20th-century fashion.<ref>{{cite web |title=In Memory of W. B. Yeats read by W. H. Auden |date=June 2013 |via=Vimeo|url=https://vimeo.com/67470412 |accessdate=19 August 2020}}</ref>)

Similarly, although the noun "wind" shifted to its modern pronunciation during the 1700s, it remained a convention to rhyme it as though it were pronounced "wined", so that in 1896, [[Ernest Dowson]] wrote:

{{Quote|text=I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the '''wind''',<br />Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,<br />Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of '''mind'''...|title="Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae"}}

==See also==
* [[Eye dialect]]
* [[Spelling pronunciation]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eye Rhyme}}
[[Category:Word play]]


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