XPost: alt.usage.english

“We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace.
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in
Rome.”

The old pronunciation of <Rome> as /ruːm/ in English was mentioned on a Languagehat thread the other day, https://languagehat.com/war-words/#comment-4604383 . OED2 comments “The pron (ruːm), indicated by the old spelling Room(e) and by the rime with doom etc. was retained by some educated speakers as late as the 19th cent.”

Kipling came out with it in 1919; I read the poem at intervals and this interval happened to be shortly after the Languagehat thread.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

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On 15/07/2024 at 13:34, Aidan Kehoe wrote:

“We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace.
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in
Rome.”

The old pronunciation of <Rome> as /ruːm/ in English was mentioned on a Languagehat thread the other day, https://languagehat.com/war-words/#comment-4604383 . OED2 comments “The pron
(ruːm), indicated by the old spelling Room(e) and by the rime with doom etc. was retained by some educated speakers as late as the 19th cent.”

Kipling came out with it in 1919; I read the poem at intervals and this interval happened to be shortly after the Languagehat thread.

Yes, but Kipling was a poet. Poets have been known to take liberties
with pronunciation to get their poems to rhyme.
It seems 'forced rhyming' is a thing. Google 'forced rhyme in poetry'.


--
Chris Elvidge, England
I WILL NOT STRUT AROUND LIKE I OWN THE PLACE

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Ar an cúigiú lá déag de mí Iúil, scríobh jerryfriedman:

[...] I don't follow, since "come" doesn't rhyme with "doom". Kipling's rhyme looks like an ordinary eye rhyme, though I don't know whether at some point "come" rhymed with some pronunciation of "Rome".

Well, it certainly doesn’t rhyme with the current pronunciation of <Rome>, and
it comes much closer to rhyming with <doom>.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

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On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 08:23:45 +0100, Aidan Kehoe <[email protected]>
wrote:

Ar an cúigiú lá déag de mí Iúil, scríobh jerryfriedman:

[...] I don't follow, since "come" doesn't rhyme with "doom". Kipling's rhyme looks like an ordinary eye rhyme, though I don't know whether at some point "come" rhymed with some pronunciation of "Rome".

Well, it certainly doesn’t rhyme with the current pronunciation of <Rome>, and
it comes much closer to rhyming with <doom>.

It's just the pronunciation of those who are fraffly well-spoken, and
rhymes with the way they pronounce "spoken" - in front of their teeth,
with lips pursed.

They, of course, accuse those they regard as less well-spoken of
"swallowing their vowels".


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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Steve Hayes wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 08:23:45 +0100, Aidan Kehoe <[email protected]>

It's just the pronunciation of those who are fraffly well-spoken, and

"fraffly" - had to google that ;)

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On Thu, 18 Jul 2024 23:36:25 -0600, Tilde <[email protected]d>
wrote:

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 08:23:45 +0100, Aidan Kehoe <[email protected]>

It's just the pronunciation of those who are fraffly well-spoken, and

"fraffly" - had to google that ;)

Pommy version of "Let stalk Strine" and "Ah Big Yaws".


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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Steve Hayes wrote:

It's just the pronunciation of those who are fraffly well-spoken, and

"fraffly" - had to google that ;)

Pommy version of "Let stalk Strine" and "Ah Big Yaws".

Good to see that Danes are not the only ones that can compact words into unrecognizable sounds.

--
Bertel
Kolt, Denmark

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