Riddle or Rhyme????

[VexPrime]

Hello, i'm a newbie here, just thought i'd post a question up here, that has stumped me for years. I had a History teacher is High school, that once asked me, if i knew what rhymed with "Orange." At the time i had no clue, i knew lots of rhyming words, but not this one. I askes him to make sure this wasn't a lame joke. He then said, "Yes, there is one word in the english language that rhymes with orange." To this day i had no clue what the heck it was or what he was trying to ask me, i had no clue, and neither did anyone else in the class i was in. Thing is, someone also told me it's an old riddle, then i started thinking, but still no help. I was hoping to get an answer, but i've asked dozens of people and they don't know! Can someone help please?


P.S.= I also got friends in chat rooms asking around if anyone knows a rhyme for "Purple" also...LOL

[tcburnett]

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple. Or if it does, I don't use it in my intimate conversations.

[Chronos]

There's plenty of words for which there's no rhyme in the dictionary, and "orange" is generally considered to be one of them. of course, with enough ingenuity, you can come up with a (contrived) rhyme for any word. My favorite example, which I first saw on Animaniacs, but which probably predates the show, is:

Roses are red,
Violets are purple
Sugar is sweet
And so is maple surple

I can't remember any good ones for "orange", but the topic has come up here before. Try searching for "rhyme", "orange", "purple", "silver", and "eloquent" all in the same thread.

[evilbeth]

Originally posted by Chronos
My favorite example, which I first saw on Animaniacs, but which probably predates the show, is:

Roses are red,
Violets are purple
Sugar is sweet
And so is maple surple

Incidentally, Roger Miller uses this little rhyme as part of his song, "Dang Me." The song was written in the early sixties. So, yes, it predates Animaniacs.

[VexPrime]

Will do, Chronos. In fact i hope to find an answer some day, as for a riddle, i don't know what he meant. I've been trying to e-mail Cecil about this, but no go so far. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to post it, i'd like to hear what others are thinking. After all i would like to go back to my old History teacher and tell him about it, just to see him smile and wonder how the heck i knew..

[Kat]

I've seen people suggest doorhinge as a rhyme to orange.

[Apollyon]

Flange?

I guess it depends on your accent, and how you pronounce Orange.

[matt]

This is from the sci-fi writer James. P. Hogan's website:

http://www.jamesphogan.com/archives/jokes.html#rhyme

I especially like the rhyme with "purple"!

The animalth rathed three timeth latht month,
The hare won twithe and the tortoithe oneth.


An Irishman Green,
Can take the potheen.
But an Irishman Orange
Ends up on the flooranj'
Ust doesn't seem able,
To stay at the table

When you're choking,
Turning purple,
A hearty slap and one good burp'll
Usually fix it.

Gold and silver
presents willvir
Ginity tend to
Put an end to.

[pulykamell]

Well, there was that nasty grape drink in the early 90s called "Burple" if anyone remembers (better to forget.)

[DrMatrix]

Originally posted by Apollyon
Flange?

I guess it depends on your accent, and how you pronounce Orange.

Hell, depending on how you pronounce them, orange and purple both rhyme with silver. Unless you pronounce them so that they rhyme with month and eloquent.

[VexPrime]

I don't think it's the accent, what i meant was English language, no accent involved. Just as i was reading these reply's, i decided to pull out my mother's "Webster's New World Dictionary: 3rd Edition." Come to find out there are 12 words with orange in it, if you have this book turn to page 952. If not i'll list what i got, it's kinda weird, check it out!

or|ange (ôr'inj, är'-; often ôrnj, ärnj) n.((OFr orenge <
Prov auranja(with sp. influ. by L auram, gold, & loss
of initial n through faulty seperation of art. un) <
Sp naranja < Ar naranj <Pers narang < Sans naranga,
prob. akin to Tamil naru, fragrant))1.A reddish-yellow,
round, edible citrus fruit, with a sweet, juicy pulp
2.any of various evergreen trees (genus Citrus) of the
rue family producing this fruit, having white, fragrant
blossoms and hard, yellow wood. 3.any of several plants
or fruits resembling the orange. 4.reddish yellow -Adj.
1.reddish-yellow 2.made with or from an orange or
oranges 3.having a flavor like that of oranges.

Or|ange (ôr'inj, är'-)name of the ruling family of the
Netherlands:see Nassau -Adj.of or having to do with
Orangemen.

Or|ange (ôr'inj, är'-;also, for 3&4, Fr ô ränzh') 1.((prob.
named for the orange groves there))city in SW Calif.:
suburb of Los Angelesop. 111,000 2.river in South
Africa, flowing from NE Lesotho west into the Atlantic:
c.1,300 mi.(2,092 km) 3.former principality of W Europe
(12th-17th cent.), now in SE France 4.city in SE France
op. 27,000

or|ange-ade (ôr'inj âd') n. ((Fr:see orange & -ade)) a drink
made of orange juice and water, usually sweetened.

Orange Free State
Province of South Africa, west of Lesotho:formerly a
Boer republic (1854-1900)& then a British Colony
(Orange River Colony, 1900-10): 49,418 sq. mi.
(127,993 sq. km);pop. 1,932,000;cap. Bloemfontein

*orange hawkweed
DEVIL'S PAINTBRUSH

lol runnin out of time here, i'll just list the rest not the explanation.

1.Or|ange-man
2.orange pekoe
3.orange rough|y
4.or|ange|ry
5.*orange stick
6.or|ange-wood
7.or|ang|y or or|ang|ey

Lots of words here, but still looking for the right answer, or the old riddle or whatever..Just want an explanation.

[Arnold Winkelried]

From A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 3

(read these pages of information maintained by Jeff Miller to see explanations of the abbreviations used.)

Bruce Todd points out that the final syllable of CITRANGE is pronounced identically with the final syllable of ORANGE, and W3 shows an alternate pronunciation of SYRINGE which is also identical in the last syllable. BLORENGE (a 1,833 ft. hill near Abergavenny, Wales) is given in O. V. Michaelsen's book Words At Play. SPORANGE looks as if it rhymes, but the word, which is short for sporangium, is pronounced spuh-RANJ. Ng Boon Leong says that as English is pronounced in Singapore, RANGE, STONEHENGE, and DERANGE all rhyme with ORANGE. Bruce Salvisberg says the French given name SOLANGE rhymes with orange.

Some other words difficult to rhyme are MONTH, SILVER, WASP, and PURPLE. The rec.puzzles archive has (n + 1)th to rhyme with MONTH, and words such as SEVENTH, ELEVENTH, and THOUSANDTH could be considered rhymes. Ted Clarke provides CHILVER (British dialect for "ewe lamb" or "ewe mutton" and a surname) and GRUNTH (an alternate spelling of GRANTH) which rhymes with MONTH in one of its pronunciations. HIRPLE is a British word meaning "walk lamely" or "hobble." HERPAL means "related to herpes" and is a Hindu name. WILVER is a given name; the best-known Wilver is baseball player Wilver "Willie" Stargell.

[Irishman]

Question about rhyming:

Why is it so hard to rhyme silver and purple? Does it have something to do with definition of rhyme relating to the accented syllables or something? Because my notion of rhyming is it just matches the last syllable in sound.

Purple - people, apple, dimple, example, etc
silver - liver, oliver, over, never, etc.

Orange - flange, syringe, lozenge (depending on how you pronounce orange) I do like "door-hinge".

month would be the hard one.

[VexPrime]

Hey Thanks Arnold, you must of done alot of searching for that one, i've had a tough time doing it myself. I added the page to a Favorite bookmark, i'll print it out later. I sure hope this is what i'm looking for, if not, hope is not lost. All you can really do to impossible rhyming words like these is give it your best shot, and ask "What do i win for doing so much hard work for one simple word?"

[pulykamell]

irishman -- yeah, you got it. the strict notion of rhyme would mean the accented syllables and the ones following have to rhyme. otherwise, "jumping" and "interesting" would rhyme, which technically, they don't.

this is not to say that the examples you brought up aren't poetically useful, because they are. They're just not traditional rhymes.

[Chronos]

Hold on... I think I've figured out the answer that your teacher wanted, at least. He said that there's one word that rhymes with orange, not that there's two. In that case, the answer would be "orange".