Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Rhyme Genie

I've been trying out a software called Rhyme Genie, advertised as "the ultimate rhyming dictionary for songwriters, lyricists, poets, rappers, jingle writers, copywriters and wordsmiths alike." Aside from all that, I think it might be useful in understanding the various ways in which we see similarities (and, by implication, distinctions) between this and that, more visual than verbal in the case of designers and artists. Here are thirty kinds of rhyme for which one can search with this software—

Additive Rhyme, Alliteration, Amphisbaenic Rhyme, Apocopated Rhyme, Assonance, Broken Rhyme, Consonance, Diminished Rhyme, Double Assonance, Double Consonance, Elided Rhyme, Family Rhyme, Feminine Pararhyme, Final Syllable Rhyme, First Syllable Rhyme, Full Assonance, Full Consonance, Half Double Rhyme, Homophones, Intelligent Rhyme, Light Rhyme, Metaphone, Pararhyme, Perfect Rhyme, Related Rhyme, Reverse Rhyme, Rich Rhyme, Soundex, Trailing Rhyme, Weakened Rhyme

In several books and essays, I've talked about the apparent parallels between pictura et poesis, hence the poetry of sight, a phrase that was lifted from James A.M. Whistler. For thoughts about this in relation to "esthetics and anesthetics," see how form functions.