# Do the words "song" and "long" rhyme?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-words-song-and-long-rhyme/691624>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 25, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-words-song-and-long-rhyme/691624 "2014-06-25T17:14:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-words-song-and-long-rhyme/691624/101 "2014-06-30T01:13:21Z")

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Dick Cavett once had on his show Alain Delon, who pronounced (John) Dillinger to rhyme with “killing 'er”. Delon, who’d already been corrected on a couple of other points of pronunciation, seemed to lose interest in doing the interview after this.

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-words-song-and-long-rhyme/691624/102 "2014-06-30T09:15:26Z")

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> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> When you say this, it makes me think that /ŋ/ doesn’t exist in your accent at all.

Phonemically, sure. But my guess is that he pronounces /nɡ/ as [ŋɡ] in all instances. Actually saying [nɡ] without putting a [ŋ] in there is extremely difficult. Even languages that don’t make a phonemic distinction usually have that sound in them.

And I’m glad I’m getting use out of my new SAMBA to IPA keyboard app I’m writing. I hold down the “menu” key and type a letter to get special IPA symbols.

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**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\
**Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-words-song-and-long-rhyme/691624/103 "2014-06-30T11:35:56Z")

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> [@BigT](#):
>
> Phonemically, sure. But my guess is that he pronounces /n/ as in all instances. Actually saying [n] without putting a in there is extremely difficult. …

That’s not even remotely true—fin-ger. There’s nothing difficult about it.

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**Author:** ![franz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@franz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/franz)\
**Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-words-song-and-long-rhyme/691624/104 "2014-07-01T11:47:47Z")

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They all rhyme to me (midwest US here)…

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