Actually, Webster says it's older than that: OE has her, thaer, and OHG has hier, dar. It probably goes back to proto-Indo-European or something. So it's not just a quirk of the GEL but a family trait.
I think the Beatles pronounce them as if they rhyme in "Here, There, and Everywhere." I mean, with the right accent, you can get all sorts of things to rhyme. One of my favorites is how Terri Clark rhymes "rain" and "strings" in her country song "Better Things to Do."
I'm listening to it on iTunes now. They rhyme "here" with "year"; they rhyme "there" with "hair"; they rhyme "everywhere" with "share." In the California English I speak the vowel in "year" is different, and it sounds different to me in the fairly generic transatlantic English of the song. So I'm thinking not.
The symmetric pattern of the song seems to come from the sequence of concepts, not from a sequence of sounds.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-01-30 06:24 pm (UTC)Actually, Webster says it's older than that: OE has her, thaer, and OHG has hier, dar. It probably goes back to proto-Indo-European or something. So it's not just a quirk of the GEL but a family trait.
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Date: 2011-01-30 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-30 09:24 pm (UTC)I mean, with the right accent, you can get all sorts of things to rhyme. One of my favorites is how Terri Clark rhymes "rain" and "strings" in her country song "Better Things to Do."
That probably doesn't help you though, does it?
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Date: 2011-01-31 01:07 am (UTC)The symmetric pattern of the song seems to come from the sequence of concepts, not from a sequence of sounds.