I have two theories, applying not just to rhyme but to traditional verse forms in general (i.e., formal constraints like rhyme, meter, alliteration, etc.):
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In prehistory—when all knowledge was transmitted orally—verse constraints acted as a sort of verbal checksum to prevent transmitted knowledge from getting corrupted accidentally. And the presence of verse patterns became a subliminal flag indicating that whatever was being sung or recited was important knowledge worth the extra effort of casting into verse.
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It’s been found in many different contexts that humans are most drawn to information with a novelty-to-predictability ratio of about 20–25%: if it’s much less than that we get bored, and if it’s much more than that we get lost and/or dismiss it as gibberish. So adding a predictable element like a regular rhyme pattern gives the creator freedom to add more novel elements without losing the audience.
It’s also worth pointing out that rhyming is not the only way to get those pattern-recognition neurons firing. Meter in poetry/lyrics is all about this, and the Ancient Greeks knew all about it. They also knew all about mnemonic tropes (wine-dark sea) and other devices. Old English in particular built most of its poetry and songs around alliteration rather than rhyming.
I feel like this is something I knew but didn’t know was something that had actually been studied. I’ll tell a lot of science concepts and stories from history and mythology that normally bore people but I’ve always had a habit of telling them “drunk history” style so I’ll be telling people shit like,“And they didn’t invite discord to the party because why the fuck would you but you also can’t just not invite her because that’s how you piss a bitch off.” and “and Paris, being a dumbfuck who doesn’t know how to think with his upstairs brain-” and honestly I was already somewhat like that but spending a bunch of my formative years on tumblr really honed it.
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Humans love recognizable patterns and symmetry. Rhymes sound alike, and when coupled with meter, help make the words “stick” in our memory. We also like artificial things that are easily distinguishable from the chaos and entropy of the natural world. We enjoy our feeble attempts at imposing order.
It’s as if the human mind was built to recognize patterns. There’s probably some biochemical reward mechanism associated with finding perceived patterns and structures, which would explain why that feels pleasant.
Well said. It seems to all be about satisfying our expectations.
Or when expectations are subverted but then satisfied in a different way (jokes, puns, etc).
But basically confirmation of our pattern matching being right.
1,2,3,4… I will now say more.
5,6,7,8… I will not hesitate.
Satisfying1,2,3,4… I will now say more.
5,6,7,8… I will not delay.
Frustrating
Because it’s drugs for your brain. Your brain expects to find a pattern and rewards you when you do. Brainscans have shown similar activation patterns in people that are listening to their favorite music as people who have recently injected heroin.
this sounds made up but i currently do not care enough to look into it so i shall take you at your word
i hope you have not misinformed me but if you have i shall do nothing except continue to nap
It’s all neuron activation. Always has been.
I’d say a lot in music is about structure, patterns, repetition etc. And endings of words being similar is part of that.
Pattern seeking brain
Rhythm
I like the novelty/predictability ratio idea. There is also the idea of “create expectations and satisfy them”, which leads to a sense of stability. Our cultures and genres create expectations. Rhymes tied to a certain metric can become part of these expectations. Of course, you can also create expectations and frustrate them, which leads to a sense of instability. Searching for “fakeout rhyme” videos makes this evident. Pat Pattison, an expert in songwriting, could be a good source on this ☺️
I want to add to the question with: and why does sometimes rhymes or phrases in other languages sound even more pleasing? “Sometimes friends” in Japanese is just super fun. Tokidoki tomodachi!
