When a child asks you to give her a word so she can come up with other words that rhyme, do you tell her "Orange"? Or just think "Orange" and say "Moon"?
Posted at July 16, 2003 08:08 AMI tell her, listen kid, no one but no one rhymes nuffin wiff nuffin dese days, and you won't neither if you knows what's good fer ya. I tells her, listen kid, poetry is unread outside the universities and undead inside the universities. Then I takes her to the bus station and puts her on the next bus outta town. And she don't rhyme no more.
Or I make up a word that sounds funny. Fnoozable, maybe.
Posted by: Eeksy-Peeksy at July 16, 2003 08:41 AMI tell 'em to go read Eeksy-Peeksy.
Then I give 'em a word with more than four syllables, like "infinitessimal," and sit back and watch. 9 times out of ten, they come up with "deep in the vestibule."
orange comes to mind, yes. moon makes it to the final draft.
Posted by: secret agent bran at July 17, 2003 12:59 AMIs this child normally inclined to drool?
I like a bit of horseplay, but I've got better things to do than wipe up.
In my experience, you give a kid a word and ask for a rhyme, then you stand there like an idiot because the entire class is staring at you like you just said something in Swahili.
Posted by: marydell at July 17, 2003 10:35 PMThis all happened in German, by the way. My younger daughter is experimenting with language. We have a book of nonsense poems, in German, I read her at bedtime some nights.
I'll try to discourage the rhyming, though, Eeksy. Thanks for the heads-up.
Posted by: mig at July 18, 2003 12:06 PM