Help out struggling poets by renaming cities! Solve the problem of “un-rhyme-able” words forever.

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Background:

It has become increasingly difficult for poets to make a living in the modern world. This is probably because all the “good” rhyming words have already been used, leaving modern poets to scavenge for scraps.

Fortunately, there are still many English words that are notoriously hard to rhyme: for example, “orange,” “beige,” “walrus,” “circle,” and “proboscis.”

This severely limits these words’ ability to be used in limericks and other types of rhyming poetry.

Proposal:

Let’s artificially create add some rhyming “words” by renaming cities!

Renaming a city for comical or frivolous purposes might seem implausible, but it has happened before: see the city of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_or_Consequences,_New_Mexico), which renamed itself in 1950 to win a radio show contest.

Some proposed new names:

To rhyme with orange (which can be pronounced “ore-inge” or “arr-inge”), we’ll rename two cities:

Fig. 1: We’ll add the city of Snornje (rhymes with “ore-inge”) and “Larnge” (rhymes with “arr-inge”) to cover both likely pronunciations of “orange.”

To rhyme with proboscis, which is a rarely-used word that could use more exposure in poetry, we’ll add a region to New York City:

Fig. 2: This new New York neighborhood called “Blogosskis” will fit right in with its neighbors.

Conclusion:

Write your government representative with some suggestions for new cities, states, parks, counties, etc.! Be creative—there are no limits!

PROS: Increases rhyming opportunities for poets, which may increase the economic plausibility of the profession.

CONS: By making it easy to create new rhyming words, it could cheapen the concept of “rhymes” in general.

Originally published 2024-09-09.