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In this video with rapper Eminem, he makes the following rhymes:

"I put my orange, four inch, door hinge, in storage, and ate porridge with george."

Following the Types of Rhymes wikipedia article, I can only connect a few types of rhymes used here:

imperfect (or near), assonance, and consonance

Am I missing other types of rhymes he makes?

RenaissanceProgrammer
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  • It is common knowledge that there is no word in English that rhymes with orange. Aren't you glad I told you that? – bib Oct 10 '13 at 00:08
  • The classical "types of rhymes" were concocted a long time ago in a different language and are not meant to describe modern rap. Among other things. If you really want to know about rhymes, you need to study phonetics and phonology; otherwise you won't have the vocabulary to talk about the sounds and how they're made and perceived. – John Lawler Oct 10 '13 at 03:54

3 Answers3

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The core of the rhyming scheme is assonance:

assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes referred to as slant rhymes, along with consonance.

Eminem is deliberately bending the pronunciation of each word so that they sound similar. This moves the vowel sounds of each rhyme into an assonance rhyme. An example of how "orange" in particular breaks down:

  • "four inch" (assonance due to the g vs ch)
  • "door hinge" (perfect/feminine)
  • "storage" (assonance due to the ng vs g)
  • "porridge" (assonance due to the ng vs dg)
  • "George" (assonance due to r vs g and ng vs rg)

One thing of note is that rap tends to also care about how the sounds are spread throughout a sentence. If you break out the common sounds (using Eminem's pronunciation) you get something like this:

  • Oh as in Orange, four, door, stOrage, pOrridge and GeOrge
  • Ih as in orAnge, inch, hinge, in, storAge, porrIdge, with, GeoRGe
  • R as in orange, four, door, storage, porridge, George
  • Ndg as in orange, inch (almost), hinge
  • Dg as in storage, porridge, George

Giving these letters and blanking out the uncommon sounds you get this (letters are vowels, numbers are consonants):

x xxx xx A1B2, xA1 B2, xA1 xB2, Bx xA1B3, xx xx xA1B3 xBx 3A1B3.

The rhyming pattern itself shows a more interesting overall pattern that essentially repeats A1B2 (oh-r-ih-ndg) three times and then switches to A1B3 (oh-r-ih-dg). This is the kind of thing Eminem is known for.

MrHen
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  • PS) A very similar sentence actually shows up in one of Eminem's songs but I'm having trouble finding it right now. – MrHen Oct 10 '13 at 19:18
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    As Eminem is from Detroit, I would actually expect him to pronounce orange somewhere between ohrinj and awrinch. making a much closer rhyme with door hinge and four inch. Aarinj is more of an east coast pronunciation. – Bradd Szonye Oct 10 '13 at 20:26
  • I was using "aa" for the inner vowel, actually. I'll add some bolding to make it more clear. I debated removing the "aa/ih" distinction entirely because I think they sound similar enough to qualify for a rhyme. What are your thoughts? – MrHen Oct 10 '13 at 20:30
  • Oh right, I realized that but forgot as I was writing the comment! I didn't listen to the video but I would also expect a Detroiter to use an I for the unstressed vowel rather than A. – Bradd Szonye Oct 10 '13 at 20:34
  • Thanks, your break down of sounds and putting them into a syntax code helps a lot, although I think he uses consonance along with assonance, like your example: "four inch" (assonance due to the g vs ch); isnt this consonance? – RenaissanceProgrammer Oct 10 '13 at 20:37
  • @BraddSzonye: Thanks. That cleaned it up a bit more and was more or less what I suspected anyway. :) – MrHen Oct 10 '13 at 20:37
  • @RenaissanceProgrammer I believe he's saying that four inch is merely assonant rather than perfect rhyme because the consonants don't quite match. (Although in me & Eminem's native accent, the G in orange is often devoiced, making the rhyme much closer.) – Bradd Szonye Oct 10 '13 at 20:42
  • @RenaissanceProgrammer: The "f" doesn't match anything in "orange" so it doesn't really qualify as consonance. – MrHen Oct 10 '13 at 20:43
  • Excellent answer, by the way! I'll have to upvote you once I get more votes at midnight UTC. – Bradd Szonye Oct 10 '13 at 20:45
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    @MrHen there's a section in 'Business' which is 'Oranges, peach pears plums I'm inches away from...' – Alexander Troup Feb 07 '14 at 13:22
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Rap, along with many other types of rhyme, is subject to artistic license. While some of these rhymes may be imperfect (MrHen's answer goes into more detail than I could possibly offer), they are 'valid' for the sake of entertainment.

I have had a problem with the strict rules of rhyme going back far longer than rap's existence myself.

I don't care what anyone says. "Eye" does NOT rhyme with "Symmetry"!

Zibbobz
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"rapper Eminem" is perhaps not the best authority for identifying obscure rhyme schemes. I would say that the rhyme form used here is "words that sound pretty much alike".

ZZMike
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    I'm not asking Eminem to identify rhyme schemes, I'm using his video as and example, he uses defined types of rhymes, and I'm asking a e.sx.com authority to identify them. – RenaissanceProgrammer Oct 10 '13 at 20:35