Not Schrödinger’s Cat

Stuff English Does

(Severe procrastination alert: google ‘Schrödinger’s Cat memes’ at your peril).

Years ago, an article of mine about the Catalan language was featured in a magazine under the (clever) title ‘Catalan Got Your Tongue? The Language With Nine Lives.’ 

My Spanish friend, who speaks great English, was bemused. 

‘In Spanish,’ she said solemnly, ‘a cat has seven lives. Why do you have nine?’

‘Porque sí.’

Because yes, which has always been my standard answer to questions like ‘why doesn’t English have a subjunctive?’  (Or rather, I would turn it around:  ‘Okay, guys, so why does Spanish have a subjunctive?’ and the class would chorus: ‘¡Porque sí!’  But I quit teaching many years ago.)

To get back to the cat and its number of lives, there’s no particular reason it would have nine as opposed to seven or eleven or a hundred and something, except that nine lives rhymes. Well, not quite – it has assonance. If we really wanted a proper rhyme, we’d have to say five lives, which is a bit of a tongue twister, and anyway, that doesn’t sound like nearly enough lives for a cat. Unless it’s Schrödinger’s, but we won’t go down that road right now.

Whenever it can, English makes a rhyme, because rhymes are memorable, and, above all, fun. Odds and ends become odds and sods, the meal delivery service for people with disabilites is Meals on Wheels, and the business model where you run both an online and a physical store is bricks and clicks.

If you’re looking for trouble you’re cruising for a bruising, rooting for a booting or even clammering (sic) for a hammering.  And on a more erudite note, evolutionary developmental biology is evo-devo.

Rhythm is basic to life, and rhyme is a form of rhythm that somehow seems to lie at the heart of language. The infant’s first babblings are monosyllables, repeated over and over: mama, papa, dada, baba. Small children – and the adults around them – naturally use rhymes, as in nicknames: Jojo, Dee Dee, Pepe, Lulu, and nursery words like moo moo, baa baa and so on.

Hugs not drugs.  No pain no gain.  Cheat sheet. Walk your talk. Wheeling and dealing.  Prime time.  Lean cuisine.  Wear and tear.  Sneak peek. Doom and gloom.  Fight or flight.  Wine and dine.  Name and shame.  Balls to the wall.  Dream team.  Fake it till you make it.

The rhymes come together effortlessly as if the words were always meant for each other.

So I asked my friend:

‘You know what we call Marks and Spencer (the famous department store) in the UK?’

‘Sí, sí:  M & S.’

‘Yes. But everyone says Marks and Sparks.’

‘Esparks?  Chispas in Spanish?’

‘Yep.’

‘What have sparks to do with the store?’

A long silence.

And then she got it.

(Originally posted on my old website and lightly edited).

Share your own rhymes here:

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