fajrdrako | (no subject) (Reply)

...But not just any rhyming words. Not rhyming slang, either.

I was reading a book called Wordplay on the bus last night and there was one chapter I found really interesting. It was on words and phrases that have internal rhyme, words like 'picnic'. This is one step away from words that are repetitions of themselves, like bonbon and tom-tom and Bora Bora and Sing Sing. Sometimes it's just assonance that makes the repetition interesting.

The author had a pile of examples, and I thought up more, and I can't recall without checking which were which, but there were a lot of good familiar word combinations. Hodge podge, hurly burly, hocus pocus, helter skelter, fag hag, hot to trot, bed head, hoity-toity, hot pot, higgledy piggledy, party hearty, heyday (or payday), pegleg. The author (Robertson Cochrane) then went into mentioning some extremely charming examples from Yorkshire that of course I'd never heard before. I think calling them "English" might be stretching a point. On the other hand, I liked them enough to maybe try using them and see if I can make them current in Canadian English. (Not bloody likely.)

Now, the part I found really interesting is how many of the examples have a first word starting with 'h'. Cochrane points this out and says the dictionary confirms it, though he has no explanation.

Do you know the game Ink Pink? I've also heard it called "Inky Pinky" and "Hinky Pinky" though I'm not sure I've ever seen it written down - and I haven't played it since childhood. In it, one person makes up a rhyming phrase, like "sad dad" or "broken token" and the other person has to guess what the words are by asking questions with yes/no answers. The title of the game follows the same pattern as the words I am talking about, of course. But it isn't generally the same sort of thing because it doesn't deal with familar words and phrases that are already established in the language.

We have a local coffee shop called Hava Java, which came to mind. Another 'h' word. From Dorothy Dunnett I get "hurble purple" (part of a medieval riddle) and "Hot Trod". I would argue that "high five", "heavy weather", "hopscotch" and maybe "home town" play on the same kind of assonance. (Otherwise why not talk about "home city" or "home place"?) I thought of "topsy turvy" but no, that's just alliteration with a little bit of assonance. Alliterative phrases are much more common.

In fact, it became a challenge to think of these rhyming phrases that don't have 'h' as the first letter of one of the words, usually the first. I thought of "lamebrain", "brain drain" and "abracadabera".

Is there a word for this kind of usage? Seems to me it's common enough it should have a name. My mother called them 'inky-pinkies' but that's because we played the game.

Is it a different linguistic thing if the words are perfectly good when used alone (like "pay" and "day") than when they are only used in the compound (like "hoity" and "toity")?

Can you think of other examples, with or without using "h"?