Are there any words that have been made up purely to rhyme (song/poem) and then have actually found their way into everyday english language?
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A good question, but to answer it we would have to know the mind of the coiner. For example, Lewis Carroll rhymes his invention Bandersnatch with claws that catch in “JABBERWOCKY”. The uncapitalized bandersnatch has since turned up in some dictionaries. But was he looking for something to rhyme with catch, or did he invent Bandesnatch first and then rhyme it with catch? We may never know for sure.
I’m not sure if this was meant to rhyme with anything, but I do know that Dr. Seuss (who seemed to rhyme anything with everything… yes, that was a pun) coined the word “nerd” in one of his books (I forget the title, 'cept it had the word “zoo” in it. “If I worked at the zoo” or something like that).
Yes, Jabberwocky was the poem I had in my mind, but I would have been sure that more words had been invented.
It seems to me that it would be very ‘arty’ to make up a word, eg. something like “Quarange” to rhyme with “Orange”.
As for the ‘nerd’ info - cool. Like that. Dr. Seuss was a genius. Here’s a link that questions that genius, but this is my own page, so if this is not on, then I’ll happily fold: http://www.laughsend.com/news/index.cfm?sectionID=5&storyID=279
Any more suggestions of words made up to rhyme?
By the way, what does ‘bandersnatch’ mean in these dictionaries?
Though Suess definitely coined “nerd” in “If I Ran the Zoo,” there’s no indication that his use is the origin of the term as we know it now. It’s most likely coincidence. There’s no particular reason why anyone would remember Seuss’s nerd any more than they’d remember an It-Kutch, a Preep, a Proo or a Nerkle, all of which are mentioned (and pictured) in the same sentence.
In any case, “nerd” wasn’t coined to rhyme; “Proo” was.
The only made-up word in Jaberwocky to make it into the language is “chortle.” However, chortle is not a rhyme in the poem.
According to Webster’s
Here is is, used in “real english”
How’s that for an impressive answer…
Oranges, poranges!
Who says?
Oranges, poranges!
There’s another one!
Oranges, poranges!
Who says
There ain’t no rhyme for “oranges”?
– Witchiepoo, on H.R. Puf’n’stuff
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I thought that syringe rhymed with orange. I have read that bulb is the only word in the english language that has no rhyme.
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Can’t say that any of his words made it into everyday acceptable usage, but Broadway/Hollywood lyricist E.Y. (“Yip”) Harburg twisted his language “to fit” all the time. Probably the most notable example is the song “Something Kind of Grandish” from Finian’s Rainbow.
I was also thinking of some Harburg lyrics, from “The Wizard of Oz.” He rhymed, among others, “elephant” with “cellophant,” “hippopatamous” with “top to bottomous” and “brontosaurus” with “king o’ fores’.” When I was younger that was always my least favorite song from the movie, until I began to appreciate the wordplay.
If I remember rightly, the nicknames “Hokie” and “Wahoo” were both created purely to rhyme with other lines in the school fight songs of Virginia Tech and UVa, respectively.
(As a student, “Hokie Pokie” had a wholly different definition from that commonly used outside of Blacksburg, VA.)
I thought rhyming slang might reap a huge harvest of answers, but the only one I could come up with was eighty-six which got its meaning of “to reject” from its rhyming with “nix.” (Maybe.)
The editors of Random House Dictionary consider the Seuss origin of “nerd” as plausible, but not incontrovertible: