Word Smith, Private I "Rhyme Crime"

Word Smith, Private I "Rhyme Crime"

I figured that with all the wet weather we were having, even the people who break the rules of grammar in their everyday speech were staying at home.So, I took another bite of p-i-z-z-a and went back to the daily crossword puzzle.

"Number four down. A seven-letter word meaning, 'the same. '"From my previous answers, I knew this one started with an S.It was right there on the tip of my tongue, so I spit it out: "sausage" - the spicy kind.Luckily, it landed in a dark and dim place near the trash.

"Yuck. I won't order sausage pizza from Antonio's again."Then I wrote down the correct answer in the crossword, "synonym," and moved on to the next clue.That's when the door opened and in walked a bespectacled, bow-tied man wearing a blue suit.

"My name is Ben Brannoor. I'm the proprietor of a greeting-card store."

"Nice scansion," I said, approvingly. "Six syllables per rhyme." "Ah, you are indeed Word Smith."

"And by your accent I can tell you are British,in which case the umbrella you're shaking out on my freshly waxed floors would be called a bumbershoot."(Number 3 Across in yesterday's crossword.)"But since I admire the alliteration of your name, dress, accent, and accessories-everything beginning with the letter B - I forgive you. Now what can I do for you?"

Ben Brannoor explained that Valentine's Day, which was coming up, was the biggest holiday of the year for the greeting-card business.But customers were leaving his store empty-handed.Why? Someone or something had taken the rhyme out of all the greeting cards.All that were left were plain sentences! Where had the rhymes gone?

"Look at this one," he said. "It is usually my number one seller. Now I may as well store it in the cellar."

I examined the cream-colored card with gold-embossed lettering.The cover showed a bouquet of flowers inside a heart.While I was looking at this beautiful card, a lump of sentimental joy welled up in my throat,unless that was a reaction to the sausage I'd just eaten.I opened the card and read the poem inside: "Roses are red. Violets are blue.If I had ten dollars, I'd spend it on my pet salamander."

"Horridly imromantic, isn't it?" Ben cried.

"Maybe it's a Valentine's Day card for an amphibian lover," I suggested.

"The last word in that poem is supposed to be you, and you know it."He thrust another card toward me, which I read, dutifully.

"It's Valentine's Day, dear. My heart is full of love.

It's true we fit together. Like a hand in a bowl of oatmeal."

"Glove! Glove is what that poem is going for," said Ben, so exasperated his bow tie untied.

"True, it is an odd poem," I concluded, "And maybe a bit gross, but not illegal."

"That's exactly what the bobbies said when they came to investigate."

I knew that bobbies, another British word beginning with a B, is a synonym for police(Number 12 down, the day-before-yesterday's crossword).

"The police said they couldn't do anything about the nonrhyming cards,because technically nothing had been stolen; the cards were still on their racks," Ben added."I suspect some type of linguistic foul play is at work."

Was there a case here? Could rhymes really disappear?Or was this just some lazy greeting- card writers getting away with word-murder?And how could something called "play" be considered work?As was my habit when lost in thought,which I much prefer being lost in rather than the woods at night, (or downtown Metropolis at any time),I went to squint through the slats of the 1940s Venetian blinds I had installed in my office.

I gazed across the avenue at the billboard advertising my favorite candy, with its famous rhyming slogan:

"When you're feeling low this can't be beat.Reach for a Choco-Ball. It's so yummy to smack with a five-iron."

Huh? Something smelled fishy, and it wasn't my day-old tuna sandwich.Then I noticed a stream of angry people leaving the theater down the block.It was just 3:00 PM; the Wednesday matinee of the hit musical comedy Young Love Is Old School shouldn't let out for another hour.Ben and I went down to see what was up.

A crowd of well-dressed women milled about the theater."Why is everyone leaving the show so early?" I asked one of the patrons."You didn't pay good money to come into the city to see an understudy in the role who wasn't up to your expectations?"

"No, all the leads were performing today, and in fine voice, too,"replied the patron, ironically named Mrs. Rhett Orically.

"So, what was the problem?"

"Besides the director not reeling in the overacting actors? It was the song lyrics! They didn't rhyme."

"Ah-ha!" I said, noting the palindrome. "Ah-ha!"

Mrs. Rhett Orically continued. "I have the cast album and saw the original show in London - so I know the lyrics!In the first act, Hiram Hornswoggle, the dashing young pharmacist vows eternal love for Hermione Hillybottom,the spunky, young animal rights activist who, on an undercover assignment, works the drugstore's cosmetics counter.But instead of singing, 'The full moon in June makes me want to swoon,' he crooned,'The full moon in October makes me want to break out in an itchy rash that can't be treated with antibiotics.'

Terrible. And painful. We didn't want to sit through that. Why, the image is frightful.Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to meet up with my group for some caloric cake and coffee before we take the bus back to Ketchum."

First, greeting cards, then advertising slogans, and now song lyrics...Ben Brannoor was right: Someone was stealing all the rhymes and replacing them with un-rhymes.But who could be so evil, so dastardly?I was drawing a blank, and not just blank verse.

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