I recently discovered that my daughter’s literature and poetry textbook uses the

word “rime” to mean “words that sound alike.” This was written for her teacher.

The only Rimes I know is LeAnn

Do you not wince, does it not make you cringe,

When a textbook preparer goes off on a binge
Of unwarranted, merciless language revision
That cuts to the quick, even to the division
Of parents from youth—or of fiction from truth?

Be aware, if you care, there was never a time

When an airplane has crashed from an excess of rhyme.
Yet the rime on the wings has brought many to ground,
In spite of the fact that it made not a sound.

“Look at Coleridge!” you say? “Did he not pen a ‘Rime’?”

Yes, he did. He was perfectly apt—for his time—
But he wrote in the Seventeen Hundreds, not now,
Else we’d see in our textbooks more “dost” and more “thou.”
Yet with “rime,” ipse dixit. Send it back; they should fixit.

©3.21.2009 21.49 David Olson

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