Where the Dreamers Go - AKICILJ: Rhyming Dictionaries for Palm OS? And a short note about rhyming dictionaries in general.

AKICILJ: Rhyming Dictionaries for Palm OS? And a short note about rhyming dictionaries in general.

1st Jul, 2008 at 12:42 PM

I remember, before Squishy got so sick, that I used to have a terrific rhyming dictionary on him, called simply "Rhymes". Now that he's all better, I want it back! :) Doing a google search on this gives me nothing, and searching for "rhyming dictionary"+pda comes up with a bunch of applications for Windows and Symbian OS, but nothing for Macs or PDAs, except an add-on to an application called BDicty, which I didn't like when I tried it years ago.

Can anyone help with a reference or a recommendation?

What I'm looking for in a rhyming dictionary is something comprehensive that includes not only single words and endings, but also phrases and word combinations. My all-time favourite rhyming dictionary is Sue Young's The New Comprehensive Aerican Rhyming Dictionary. Yes, I know it has the word 'American' in there, but it really is a terrific rhyming dictionary, despite its geographical origin! Honest; I'll show it to you sometime.

Anyway, back when I was writing lots of songs, that and David Grambs' The Describer's Dictionary, a wonderful little book either recommended to me or given to me by

relentlesstoil (I don't remember which), were the blocks upon which I built an awful lot of songs.

I emphatically do not think that using a rhyming dictionary is "cheating" when you're writing poetry or songs, and I've never regretted carrying around my copy of Miller Williams' Patterns of Poetry either, so there! Right now, I'm going through The Ode Less Travelled, and I'm finding these resources very helpful. Now, if only they all fit into a little box smaller than a paperback book....

Mood: cheerful

Comments

( Step into the forest )

fleetfootmike wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 11:46 (UTC)

Rhyming dictionary bad? Hell no.
I must have used an online one four or five times for "The Miller's Tale".

What exactly is "The Describer's Dictionary"?

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telynor wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 12:06 (UTC)

Amazon.co.uk have it listed here, and the publisher's page for it is here.

It's sort of a conceptual dictionary grouped by ideas and concepts rather than straight alphabetical order, and it includes quotes and context notes on the words that I've found really useful and creatively empowering over the years. First suggested to me as an aid to make MUSH/MOO descriptions more fun and interesting, it's stayed on my shelf with writing resources for more than 10 years now.

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aunty_marion wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 12:08 (UTC)

I've just checked, and alas, it's not one of the eBooks you left me on Shiny. ;-{

The Describer's Dictionary sounds like a sort of Roget's Thesaurus with added examples of usage.

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redaxe wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 12:46 (UTC)

There's a freeware rhyming dictionary here, but it doesn't look very good. Will look more after gottagetitnow trip to Duane Reade for a fingersplint, rolled bandages, and tape for M -- she returned precipitously from her morning commute. Film at 11.

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djonn wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 15:14 (UTC)

Not an electronic book, unfortunately, but my long-standing favorite rhyming dictionary is called Words to Rhyme With by the late Willard R. Espy, which includes a large compendium of rhyming words (including multisyllabic rhymes and a lot of highly obscure entries, for which he included a glossary) as well as a very solid primer/reference on prosody and poetic form. A quick round of Google-fu reveals that there've been several updates to the volume since its original publication (with new co-editors since his death), and that there's a UK volume (The Wordsworth Rhyming Dictionary) credited to him as well; what that one shares with Words to Rhyme With I don't know.

Espy was an essayist, editor, and writer of verse whose roots were in Oysterville, Washington but whose literary and editorial adventures stretched across the US and into Europe; it happens that a number of relatives on my father's side are also from the area around Oysterville, and I was fortunate to meet him on a handful of occasions when he was in the area promoting one or another of his books (in addition to a number of collections of light verse and poetry, he penned a vivid personal memoir on Oysterville itself).

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aunty_marion wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 15:19 (UTC)

Lucky you! I have his The Game of Words, which I found in the library, enjoyed, and bought second-hand copies of for myself and Mum.

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keristor wrote:

1st Jul, 2008 16:19 (UTC)

I don't know who does think that using rhyming dictionaries is cheating. Possibly the same people who insist that mediaeval recreation isn't 'proper' unless you have reared the sheep, sheared it etc. to make all of your clothes (having used no 'modern' needles either).

The problem with rhyming dictionaries is that accents differ, often drastically, so that what rhymes in one place is not a rhyme at all in another (may not even have the right number of syllables!). Does the one you recommend handle that, with different possibilities? I suspect that an American dictionary may be more open to the problem than some European ones where there is an 'official' version of the language.

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