Roses are red, I wish I could travel in time. Am I really that dumb, or “word” and “sword” actually rhyme?

They don’t rhyme, they have different vowels. Word rhymes with bird.

they do not rhyme in standard American variants of english

You would have to pronounce “sword” very weirdly to make it work, though that is not unheard of in poetry/lyrics, in some types of poetry *looking* like a rhyme is an acceptable replacement for an actual rhyme. And of course in blank verse and free verse poetry rhyme doesn’t matter at all. That said I agree with the comments here that this doesn’t really work because the type of rhyme used for the “Roses are red” format is very well known and the word/sword rhyme just doesn’t cut the mustard (not to mention there’s both too many and an unequal number of syllables in the second and fourth line.)

No, they don't rhyme at all, but sometimes they will be used together in a "forced rhyme".

"Sword" rhymes with "ward". "Swurd" (not a real word) would rhyme with "word". The <w> doesn't matter. It's the vowel that's important here.

Just googled it and apparently "word" uses a "ə"???? I could've sworn it was just a regular old "o" sound but it seems like my brain has been playing tricks on me again

It depends on the dialect, but the majority of english speakers would not produce word and sword the same.

“Sword” rhymes with “ward,” not with “word.”

It does rhyme tho

What the hell happened here? Not sure if OP is asking a legitimate question, but I'll try: "Word" sounds like "werd" in my dialect, midwestern American. Sword obviously sounds like "sord". So, no, they don't rhyme.

They don't rhyme. "Sword" rhymes with "bored" and "lord". "Word" rhymes with "bird" and "nerd".

>*"In what universe does sword rhyme with word"* The ESL universe.

[ɔɹd] does not rhyme with [ɚd]

No, the poster of this rhyme is being an idiot

They don't rhyme. It's an accepted cheat in some poetry to use a word that looks like it rhymes with another word if you can't think of a fitting word that actually rhymes. It's accepted...but it's always better if the words actually rhyme. It's called a half rhyme, imperfect rhyme, near-rhyme, lazy rhyme, or slant rhyme, and is a type of rhyme formed by words with similar but not identical sounds.

They used to but we stuck with the 15th century spelling as the sounds evolved.

"sord" and "werd" do not rhyme

They don't rhyme, except when intentionally mispronounced as in this song [https://youtu.be/KVN\_0qvuhhw?si=Jxjm\_fM41T1ImxGT](https://youtu.be/KVN_0qvuhhw?si=Jxjm_fM41T1ImxGT) Edit: given the reference to the N-Word in combination with the wonky word-sword rhyme, I'm now convinced the "poem" was at least partly inspired by that song.

Used to centuries ago, now the w is silent

i can only speak for my accent (western american) but “word” has a short and very neutral vowel sound, so it’s pronounced more like “wrrd”. “sword” has a long “o” sound that is much more pronounced. they look like they rhyme, and they could be used for slant rhyme, but they don’t actually properly rhyme.

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\~erd - \~ord. Doesn't rhyme to me

They do not have the same vowel and don't rhyme in the sense that most people are used to, but sight rhymes are allowed in English poetry. Someone who knows more about poetry than me might disagree, but I'm not aware of anything in this that disqualifies it from being a poem in the 20th or 21st centuries. The average English-speaker might not like free verse, but not liking an art form doesn't stop it from being art. \[Edit: There are a lot of people on reddit who know more about poetry than me, but to my half-ignorant ears, this sounds like a poem written by someone who is well-versed in English-language poetry and deliberately wrote the poem this way just to troll white people and get the exact kinds of uninformed reactions you're seeing in these replies\]

If you're looking for some unsolicited english advice, "...that dumb, or “word” and “sword” actually rhyme?" should be "...that dumb, or do "word" and "sword" actually rhyme?" But yeah, like everyone is saying you're right.

There are visual rhymes and there are audible rhymes. Often the two are the same (same name game) but sometimes a visual rhyme is not an audible rhyme (good blood food) and often an audible rhyme is not a visual rhyme (booze cruise bruise crews)

They don't rhyme and this poem makes no sense.

There is a thing called “slant rhyme” (real ones who watched Danny Phantom will know this one), which is a technique where the two ‘rhyming’ words in question use the same vowels, however the vowels are pronounced differently. I would personally say this is somewhere between an ordinary rhyme and a slant rhyme. The meter of the ‘poem’ imo creates an interruption on the last line, which is resolved by the phrase “N-word” and - although not normally an exact rhyme with “sword,” it’s sufficiently close in this case that it relieves the tension created by the interruption and delivers a satisfying rhyme.

It rhymes in the Dublin accent I think. That’s the only one I can think of

I'm more curious what the poem is supposed to mean, but no, they don't rhyme. Also, his meter is WAY off. Even if it did rhyme, it's awkward as heck to squeeze in all those syllables.

Or DO “word” and “sword” actually rhyme?*

It pronounced s-word.

Rhymes or not aside, the meter is atrocious

Different vowel sounds in my accent.

They don’t, sword sounds like ord and word is more like erd

Eye rhyme. Only visually rhyming. One of the ways English is stupid.

Sword does not rhyme with word. Also, you shouldn’t throw the “n word” around.

It’s a near rhyme. I’ve seen people get away with bigger stretches than that

In some accents it does, but not standard American. Pretty sure it rhymes in a Boston accent

Yea so funny thing about the English language, word rhymes with nerd, sword rhymes with ward, but word doesn't rhyme with sword.

It's what is known as an "eye rhyme," not uncommon in classical English poetry, sometimes a result of historical changes in pronunciation. English poetry also admits imperfect "near rhymes." English is more impoverished in rhymes than languages such as French, Italian, German and Russian, so liberties are allowed that would not be permissible in classical poetry in those languages. The poverty of English rhymes is a reason why English poets such as Shakespeare and Milton freed themselves from the tyranny of rhyme by writing blank verse before other languages abandoned strict rhyme. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_rhyme

No. Word - rhymes with bird, third, herd, nerd, Sword - rhymes with board, bored, gored, soared

Everyone under this post keep saying how it just doesn't because of vowel difference or some shit and tbh i need a simpler explanation myself because to me those are "word" and "word but with an s at the start" and it SHOULD rhyme

lobotomy corporation?????

No they don't rhyme, at least in my dialect of Australian English.

Hey guys look at my cool swerd.

The bigger problem is the scansion - too many syllables per line.

You can make them rhyme, especially if you like "bending" words like eminem does for example

Roses are red. Violets are dull. I wish my feelings weren't so blue. I cut my cord with a retractable sword. Slowly moving, not uttering a word Did I see a migrating herd. When suddenly water did fall And I became a ghost invisible to y'all.

They don’t actually rhyme, but I remember something like “eye rhyme”

In confused is the poem supposed to be racist

No, they don't. Not in any dialect of English I've ever heard.

It’s called a slant rhyme and is very normal in poetry. Examples would be words like time and mind, or face and shapes. No, it doesn’t actually rhyme perfectly, but the words have consonance or assonance that make them flow nicely when used together.

Dunno, I pronounce it the same. However, my speaking skills are generally mutated because I'm not native and have smaller experience in talking and hearing.

They don't, but there is a habit in English poetry to rhyme words that don't rhyme which is leftover from a time when they did rhyme. In Middle English, word and sword did rhyme. Sword and word both were pronounced with an o as in Modern English cold, and the w in sword was pronounced. This wasn't the case in all dialects, but poets often rhymed words like that well into the 1600s, and it is still done occasionally, but is considered poetic. If reading the poem, you can make one word rhyme with the other if you want and usually only one sounds good (such as making word rhyme with sword, or again rhyme with rain) and the reverse sounds bad (making sword rhyme with word or rain rhyme with again). You can also pronounce them as they are and ignore the rhyme for those lines.

I think. in the poem, you're supposed to read it as "s-word". Because "stick" begins with the letter "s" like how the n-word begins with the letter "n"