If somebody wants to replace eye-rhyme and ear-rhyme with correct terms, be my guest.
Here’s the idea, though, brought to mind in a recent thread where fun is being had over the correct pronunciation of OG. It occurred to me that regional variations can account for why not all -og words rhyme. In my case, dog is an oddball to fog, cog, log, hog, etc.
The idea is to locate some short (3-to-5-letter) words that have the same vowel in print but a different, non-rhyming sounds when spoken. Here’s a group that almost rhymes, but has at least one non-ear-rhyme:
ban, can, Dan, fan, Han, Jan, LAN, man, Nan, pan, ran, tan, van, wan, Yan (the missing starting consonants may have words that exist for them but I couldn’t think of example words offhand).
Come up with a group that has eye-rhyme and ear-rhyme with many starting consonants. Otherwise, find a group that almost works.
Expand on the idea if you can. A way to abuse a Thursday at least.
Okay. Rough-tough, cough-trough, dough-though, slough-through, but does bough rhyme with any of them? I’ve heard slough as both slew and sluff and maybe even to rhyme with bough as in bow down.
The idea wasn’t to find as wide a range of vowel sounds as possible but to find a group where there are few exceptions (but at least one) to a general rule for pronunciation.
I’m not trying to be an asshole here – it was an honest question, because as you know I looooooooooove a good wordplay thread. What are you looking for? A list where there’s one exception, or as many different pronunciations as possible?
I accept that my OP was ambiguous. Your interpretation is a valid one based on my attempted explanation.
The original idea was (for me anyway) best exemplified by the -an group where all but a few have the same rhyme, but with at least Han and wan differing.
If somebody can produce a group of at least five words where all but one have the same pronunciation as far as rhyming goes, that would be what I was shooting for. Also a list of at least ten where they all have the same rhyme would be neat.
As I tried to say, the -og group for me is almost right, except for my Southern “dawg” as the oddball – there may be others like dog, too.
But the notion of expanding on the notion is equally valid for the thread, and my earlier reply to your -ough group was just an effort to clarify what I had meant to say in the OP. The “you win” remark was in the spirit of allowing multiple interpretations of what was vaguely worded. I’m learning that my OP’s have that feature more often than not.
No harm, no foul on your part, and I do know of your penchant for these games.
Not to worry. Your entry was great. As I have tried to say, the OP was vague and ambiguous and (at the very least) open to multiple interpretations. Yours was as vaild as any other, despite my wish to have other lists along the lines of my “clarification.”
I hope others will find other equally valid interpretations!
