Holorime (or holorhyme) is a form of rhyme where two very similar sequences of sounds can form phrases composed of different words and with different meanings. For example, the two lines of

Miles Kington Miles Beresford Kington (13 May 1941 – 30 January 2008) was a British journalist, musician (a double bass player for Instant Sunshine and other groups) and broadcaster. He is also credited with the invention of Franglais, a fictional language, ...

's poem "A Lowlands Holiday Ends in Enjoyable Inactivity" are pronounced the same in some

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

dialects: Holorime pairs may also be referred to as oronyms.

In French

French poetry French poetry () is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France. French prosody and poetics The modern French language does not have a significant str ...

, ''rime richissime'' ("very rich rhyme") is a rhyme of more than three

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s. A holorime is an extreme example. For example ( Marc Monnier): :''Gall, amant de la Reine, alla, tour magnanime !'' (Gallus, the Queen's lover, went – a magnanimous gesture! –) :''Galamment de l'Arène à la Tour Magne, à Nîmes.'' (Gallantly from the Arena to the Great Tower, at Nîmes.)" : Another notable French exponent of the holorime was

Alphonse Allais Alphonse Allais (20 October 1854 – 28 October 1905) was a French writer, journalist and humorist. Life Allais was born in Honfleur, Calvados (department), Calvados. He died in Paris. Work He is the author of many collections of whimsical writ ...

: :''Par les bois du djinn, où s'entasse de l'effroi,'' (By the woods of the djinn, where fear abounds,) :''Parle et bois du gin, ou cent tasses de lait froid.'' (Talk and drink gin, or a hundred cups of cold milk.) : French lends itself to humorous wordplay because of its large number of heterographic

homophone A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (p ...

s: :''Ma mère est maire de Mamers, et mon frère est masseur.'' (My mother is the mayor of

Mamers Mamers () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays de la Loire in north-western France. The neighboring communes are: Commerveil, Saint-Longis, Saint-Rémy-des-Monts, Origny-le-Roux, Suré. Mamers is twinned with the town Ma ...

, and my brother is a masseur.) :''Ma mère est mère de ma mère, et mon frère est ma sœur.'' (My mother is my mother's mother, and my brother is my sister.) : :''Lundi et mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredimanche, samedi'' (Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Frisunday, Saturday.) :''L'un dit, et m'a redit mercredi, « Je dis, vendre dix manches, ça me dit ! »'' (Someone said, and repeated it to me on Wednesday, "I say, selling ten sleeves, I'd like that!") :

In Japanese

A type of holorime where the meaning changes based on where word boundaries are placed in the phrase is known as in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

. The word itself is a ''ginatayomi'', since it arises from a misreading: : ''Benkei ga, naginata wo motte'' 弁慶が、長刀を持って (

Benkei , popularly known as simply Benkei, was a Japanese warrior monk ('' sōhei'') who lived in the latter years of the Heian Period (794–1185) .html" ;"title="/sup>">/sup>. Benkei led a varied life, first becoming a monk, then a mountain ascetic ...

, take the ''

naginata The ''naginata'' (, ) is a pole weapon and one of several varieties of traditionally made Japanese blades (''nihontō''). ''Naginata'' were originally used by the samurai class of feudal Japan, as well as by ashigaru (foot soldiers) and sōhei ...

'') : ''Benkei gana, ginata wo motte'' 弁慶がな、ぎなたを持って (Oi

, take the ''ginata'') These words are consequently also known as ''Benkei-yomi''. Another famous example: :''Pan tsukutta koto aru?'' パン作ったことある？ (Have you ever made bread?) :''Pantsu kutta koto aru?'' パンツ食ったことある？ (Have you ever eaten underpants?)

Other examples

A mondegreen (or in Japanese

soramimi is a Japanese word that in the context of contemporary Japanese internet meme culture and its related slang is commonly used to refer to humorous homophonic reinterpretation, deliberately interpreting words as other similar-sounding words for co ...

) is a holorime generated by misheard song lyrics, such as mishearing " 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky" as " 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy." A

homophonic translation Homophonic translation renders a text in one language into a near-homophonic text in another language, usually with no attempt to preserve the original meaning of the text. In one homophonic translation, for example, the English "sat on a wall" i ...

is a holorime or near-holorime where the two homophonic or near-homophonic readings come from different languages, such as "

Humpty Dumpty Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described as such. ...

" in English and "Un petit d'un petit" in French. Homophonic translations are a specific form of

macaronic Macaronic language uses a mixture of languages, particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different languages). Hybrid words ...

wordplay. French author

Raymond Roussel Raymond Roussel (; 20 January 1877 – 14 July 1933) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French litera ...

described his writing process as a method of connecting two sentences that were holorimes of each other, "I chose two similar words. For example billard (billiard) and pillard (looter). Then I added to it words similar but taken in two different directions, and I obtained two almost identical sentences thus. The two sentences found, it was a question of writing a tale which can start with the first and finish by the second."

Notes

References

External links