WSG to the The Graphic, March 19, 1870.

RHYME

To the Editor of The Graphic.

SIR, – I think I can suggest to your correspondent "Isabel" a more legitimate rhyme to "month" than "twenty-oneth."  What does she say to "millionth" – pronounced, of course, as a trisyllable?

The word "dismal" has long been held by Notes and Queries to be without rhyme.  But "paroxysmal" seems to me to answer all necessary conditions.

WSG to The Graphic, April 2, 1870, issue 18, p. 427

RHYME

To the Editor of The Graphic.

SIR, – I accept Mr. Burnand’s challenge to find a rhyme to "silver," if he will allow me the license that he himself takes in finding a rhyme to "month."

If Mr. Burnand is in earnest when he suggests "runn’th" as a legitimate rhyme to "month," and really believes that when he is at a loss for a rhyme he is at liberty to dispense with any letter that may stand between himself and the fulfilment of his wishes, he will perhaps admit that I am liberty to say —

But allowing, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Burnand is at liberty to rob "runneth" of its only e whenever it pleases him to do so, the fact remains that the u in "runn’th" is, in strictness, no rhyme to the o in "month."  To a careless ear there is, no doubt, a strong analogy between the two sounds, and in ordinary versification they might pass muster as fairly good rhyme; but in seriously discussing a question of nicety in rhyme, we are bound to look at it from a purist’s point of view, and form this point of view "runn’th" is no rhyme to "month."

I still adhere to "millionth" as the best rhyme to "month," and I have the authority of the greatest poets in the English language for treating it as a tri-syllable, if I feel disposed to do so.  The termination "ion" in such words as "million," "contagion," "rapscallion," "morion," "pillion," "vermilion," has been used indifferently as one or two syllables by every poet in the English language from Chaucer to Tennyson:

Here are some analogous cases:

Would not Mr. Burnand consider himself justified in writing,

Inventors often give arbitrary and wholly irrational names to their inventions, in order to bring them more immediately into notice.  Now these ingenious gentlemen would take rank as public benefactors if, in selecting these arbitrary names, they would be so good as to enrich the English language with rhymes to words that are at present rhymeless, or nearly rhymeless.  If the inventor of the Rantoone had called it a "Ronth" (explaining in his specification that the o was to have the exact value of the o in "month"), this controversy would have been avoided, and the instrument, whatever it is, extensively advertised, for, as the only unimpeachable rhyme to "month" (except my "millionth") it would be perpetually lugged into doggerel.  I myself am engaged in perfecting an ingenious apparatus for the purpose of extracting sunbeams from the cucumber of commerce (cucumis communis of Linnaeus), and when it is completed I shall call it a "Chilver."  Perhaps my unconditional acceptance of Mr. Burnand’s challenge to find a disyllabic rhyme to "silver," without the aid of a context, had better stand over until this instrument is completed.

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