[Holly Martins]

I'm working on a couple of poems using eye rhymes and need a greater selection of them to work from than Google seems able to provide. Anyone know where I can find a comprehensive list?

[Roger Slater]

I can't find a comprehensive list either, and I somehow doubt there is one. But there are several good examples in This Wikipedia Article which you have probably seen already. Personally, I like ear rhymes when eye rhyme, though I am working on developing a nose rhyme (words that don't actually rhyme but smell very similar).

[Jim Hayes]

Hey Roger, what a coincidence, I'm working on touch rhymes,
words that look the same but feel different, the real interesting ones are touchy-touchy rhymes for sensitive poetry. I'm also thinking about look-but-don't-touch rhymes which I could use in poems dedicated to old girl friends.

[Rose Kelleher]

I think I can guess why neither of you is working on "taste" rhymes, but it wouldn't be nice to say...

[Roger Slater]

There you go -- taste/caste is a fine eye rhyme and maybe even a good tongue rhyme.

(That last sentence has other potential eye rhymes as well, such as there/here and go/to and fine/'zine and a/bra and even/seven).

[Gregory Dowling]

Some time ago I posted a poem which rhymed AABB as regards eye-rhymes and ABAB as regards ear-rhymes. Here are the first two stanzas:

One day the ailing Farmer Ron
Addressed his eldest sailor son:
“My boy, when I am dead and gone,
When my life’s work is fully done,

And I have flitted over there,
Then you’ll be left to cope down here.
It’s something you will have to bear
So wipe away that foolish tear.

I managed to keep it up for ten stanzas before it petered out; I sometimes use it with my students, just to give them the final depressing proof that English spelling and pronunciation are only very loosely connected.

[Seree Zohar]

holly - how about this? (or did u find stuff already?) http://www.learnenglish.de/homophones/Homophones.htm
must be more sources of different kinds out there....
http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cellis/heteronym.html



[This message has been edited by Seree Zohar (edited November 09, 2008).]

[Holly Martins]

Thanks so much for this, Seree, the Heteronym Homepage is just the ticket. I would never have thought of 'sake/sake'!

[R. S. Gwynn]

Don't forget all the -ough eye-rhymes.

[Roger Slater]

Not sure if this kids' poem of mine uses eye rhymes or not, but it seems sort of related among rhyming anomolies:


NUMB NUMBERS

I awoke from my slumber
one morning last summer
and wondered why number
is spelled just like number.

In one word the b
is virtually roared.
In one word the b
is simply ignored.

It's hard to imagine
anything dumber.
If a number were numb
could another be number?