rhymes for “love”

There’s a Project Gutenberg ebook compilation called A Wodehouse Miscellany. It comprises some twenty short articles and stories by the humorist P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975). The publication dates of the individual components are not always stated, but the compilation itself dates only from 2003.

Anyhow, one of the articles is entitled ‘On the writing of lyrics’. Here’s an excerpt.

“Love” rhymes with “dove”, “glove”, “above” and “shove”. It is true that poets who print their stuff instead of having it sung take a mean advantage by ringing in words like “prove” and “move”; but the lyricist is not allowed to do that. This is the wretched unfairness of the lyricist’s lot. The language gets him both ways. It won’t let him rhyme “love” with “move”, and it won’t let him rhyme “maternal” with “colonel”. If he tries the first course, he is told that the rhyme, though all right for the eye, is wrong for the ear. If he tries the second course, they say that the rhyme, though more or less ninety-nine percent pure for the ear, falls short when tested by eye. And, when he is driven back on one of the regular, guaranteed rhymes, he is taunted with triteness of phrase.

No lyricist wants to keep linking “love” with “skies above” and “turtle dove”, but what can he do? You can’t do a thing with “shove”; and “glove” is one of those aloof words which are not good mixers. And — mark the brutality of the thing — there is no word you can substitute for “love”. It is just as if they did it on purpose.

If only phoneticians (such as yours truly) could write about ear rhymes and eye rhymes in such an entertaining way!

Wodehouse was of course English, and speakers of BrE will nod their heads in agreement with what he says here. But Americans may be a little surprised. In AmE there is another word, a very frequent one, that lyricists can use as a rhyme for love: the strong form of the preposition of. In BrE this is pronounced ɒv (with the LOT vowel), so is not a suitable rhyme, but in AmE it is predominantly ʌv (with the STRUT vowel; some prefer to write it əv). Voilà!

Presumably this STRUT-vowel pronunciation arose as a restressing of the weak form əv.

Despite living for many years in the US, Wodehouse seems not to have noticed how (most) Americans say of.

As far as I know, ʌv (STRUT) is unknown in BrE. Conversely, though, there seem to be some Americans who say ɑv (LOT), but how many they are, and whether they have some distinguishing social or regional characteristic, I do not know.