# The cognitive process of "rhyming" in pop-art **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2025, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415 "2025-01-01T01:54:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/21 "2025-01-02T18:25:56Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > is it hardwired into our (human) language-brain? Don’t know whether it is hardwired, whatever that means. But patterns like rhyme surely make learning the language easier for babies, it gives them satisfaction (see _Erfolgserlebnis_, or success), mama and papa are pleased, the baby likes it. That is a mighty conditioning (see also _frühkindliche Prägung_)! ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/22 "2025-01-02T19:12:22Z")
The ability to make music is apparently innate, as it is in other animals. Some theories posit that [language came from music](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-musical-self/201209/which-came-first-music-or-language). That doesn’t mean that either meter or rhyme is innate.You haven’t lived until you’ve sat through an atonal church organ solo, apparently written and played by chimpanzees. More seriously, some native American drum and flute music lack melody and that presumably has ancient origins. Assuming that music and language are not separate developments but inextricably tied, then the creation of pathways to remember what has been played or sang would follow. [Nearly all birds learn their songs from adults. In contrast, virtually all mammals utter their calls/roars/signals instinctively. Only humans, whales, dolphins, and two bat species need to learn their communicative vocalizations.](https://biology.williams.edu/files/2013/05/HWchapter.pdf) Whales and dolphins are also said to have language. (The bats baffle me.) Every pathway to make song and language and especially language in song easier to remember would be crucial to the survival of the species. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/23 "2025-01-02T19:36:05Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > People simply like rhymes, and do so from a very young age, at least acording to my experience. Sort of like: _Mary had a little lamb, Some peas and carrots, toast and jam…_ ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/24 "2025-01-02T20:55:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > More seriously, some native American drum and flute music lack melody and that presumably has ancient origins. Have you listened to Arnold Schoenberg? I have the impression that Anglo-Saxon poetry was based on alliteration, not rhyme and that rhyme came in with the Normans after 1066. Chaucer is certainly rhymed but that is not old English. For the most part, Shakespeare used unrhymed verse with a strict iambic pentameter: de dah de dah de dah de dah de dah. That fits English stress patters very well. Of course, he was capable of rhymed verse when he wanted it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/25 "2025-01-02T21:13:53Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > For the most part, Shakespeare used unrhymed verse with a strict iambic pentameter: de dah de dah de dah de dah de dah. Well, in his plays. Obviously not his sonnets. And I wouldn’t call it strict. There was plenty of variation, as is to be expected, otherwise it would be boring as F if it was de dah de dah, etc., all the way. Plus he had plenty of prose in his plays, too. Much Ado About Nothing, for example, is majority in prose. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/26 "2025-01-03T08:26:10Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I have the impression that Anglo-Saxon poetry was based on alliteration It was, indeed. But then, alliteration is also a pattern. Rhymes are seen as the telltale sign of poetry, but there are many ways in which you can make something poetic without resorting to them : alliteration, rhythm, repetition, unusual syntax. I’d say that the hallmark of poetry is not so much rhyming as artificiality. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/27 "2025-01-03T14:24:37Z")
Shakespeare mostly seemed to use poetic meter as a class marker: High-class characters would speak in iambic pentameter, while low-class characters would speak in prose. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/28 "2025-01-03T14:38:01Z")
Yeah, that’s roughly true in many cases, but in my example, Much Ado, high status characters speak prose, too. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/29 "2025-01-03T15:56:07Z")
Yes, they spoke prose, but **[did they know it](https://thehumanist.com/magazine/january-february-2013/features/speaking-prose-all-our-lives)**? ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415/30 "2025-01-03T16:05:33Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yeah, that’s roughly true in many cases, > but in my example, > Much Ado, > high status characters speak prose, > too. ISWYDT [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-cognitive-process-of-rhyming-in-pop-art/1012415.md?page=1)