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  • in Ben Johnson's time, [age, stage, rise] -- rhymed?

    From HenHanna@21:1/5 to All on Fri May 31 14:34:09 2024
    XPost: sci.lang, alt.usage.english, alt.poetry

    Soul of the age!
    The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
    My Shakespeare rise.
    (by Ben Jonson)

    -------- in his time, age, stage, rise -- rhymed?



    ____________________________________________________

    Lines from Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene ii):

    "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
    It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

    In Shakespeare's time, "east" would have been pronounced more like
    "eastt" (with a long "e" sound) and "sun" would have been pronounced
    more like "sonne" (with a long "o" sound). This creates a perfect rhyme,
    where the vowel sounds and ending consonants exactly match.

    However, in modern English pronunciation, "east" has a shorter "e" sound
    and "sun" has a short "u" sound. This results in a slant rhyme, where
    the vowel sounds are similar but not identical. The "st" ending
    consonants still create a phonetic connection, but the overall effect is
    less perfect than it would have been for Shakespeare's audience.


    ___________ That makes no sense !


    Perhaps it's best to find a clearer example where a perfect
    rhyme in Shakespeare's time has become a non-rhyme today due to
    pronunciation shifts. Here are a few options:

    "Love" and "prove": In Shakespeare's time, "love" might have been pronounced closer to "luvv" and "prove" closer to "proov", creating a
    perfect rhyme. Today, they are not true rhymes.


    "Bride" and "side": Similar to "love" and "prove", "bride" might
    have been pronounced like "bried" and "side" like "sied", resulting in a perfect rhyme that is lost today.

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  • From Rich Ulrich@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jun 1 00:31:40 2024
    XPost: sci.lang, alt.usage.english, alt.poetry

    On Fri, 31 May 2024 14:34:09 -0700, HenHanna <[email protected]>
    wrote:


    "Bride" and "side": Similar to "love" and "prove", "bride" might
    have been pronounced like "bried" and "side" like "sied", resulting in a >perfect rhyme that is lost today.

    I'll bite. What other way do you pronounce bride or side?
    I think I've heard no other, for either.

    --
    Rich Ulrich

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