This episode of DNews is brought to you by Audible.
Call if you must bad rhyming a disease.
It gives men happiness, or leaves them at ease.
But why do we rhyme my fellow DNewsers?
It's in your brain!
The cells and users!
Hey guys, Trace here, thanks for tuning in today for some DNews.
Monday was International Limerick Day, celebrating the birthday of British writer Edward Lear,
who popularized limericks in the mid-19th century in his work, "A Book of Nonsense."
Rhymes are fun, son!
But rhyme is a lot more than just finishing sentences with similar words.
That is for the birds.
There's alliteration and assonance.
There's consonance and syllabic rhyme...
And more!
Rhyming has as much to do with the rhythm of speech and language as it does with the
systematic use of certain vowels or consonants.
Rhyme is common in Arabic and English -- parts of the Koran and the Bible rhyme -- and the
earliest example of rhyme is from the 10th century in China.
Because Japanese has so few sounds in their language, their poetry is based on double
meanings and wordplay, while in China they use the breadth of their tonal language to
create a musical pattern.
For humans rhyme is processed in language, but also music.
A study in Memory and Cognition found adults who SANG while learning a new language picked
it up MUCH faster.
A study in Infant Behavior and Development asked pregnant women to read "The Cat in the
Hat" aloud every day of their third trimester.
After birth, newborns responded when they heard the words from "The Cat in the Hat"
again!
Humans love rhyme time!
As regular DNews viewers will know, MUSIC has a HUGE influence on the human brain, with
rhyme connected deeply with our expression of music.
We've been built with an understanding of music, and though related, rhyme is a little
different.
Using various brain scanners, researchers at Stanford found Beta and Gamma brain waves
correlate or sync up while subjects listened to music.
When listening to rhythm and rhyme we naturally try to predict where the next will fall.
Separately, a study published in the journal Nature pointed an fMRI at the brains of men
and women to see how they processed rhyming differently.
When brains heard regular language, they lit up all over, but when they heard rhyme, it
was sublime.
The fMRI showed activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex -- part of the executive
function and language processing.
Interestingly, while women use BOTH sides of their brain to process rhyme, men only
use the left side...
So TL;DR: WHY do we like rhyming?
Well, a study in Evolutionary Psychology puts it like this: Men will to dress to impress,
with both attire and language.
Men have a penchant for becoming linguistically loquacious when presented with an affable
member of their preferred procreative coital captivation.
One way to show wit is with words.
Nothing preempts a pithy partner -- according to the study, people would reach into their
vocabulary and pull out those rare, larger, more complex words to show off their mental
fitness, and prove themselves worthy partners.
If you recall, women use more of their brain to process rhyme, so perhaps these are related?
Poetry is the language of love.
Pity the perturbed peabrain, for their prose cannot proliferate a predilection for their...
you know what I mean.
Write your favorite rhymes in the comments below, lyrics, raps, poems, you name it.
If you want to know more about rhyming, check out Audible.com!
They've got hours of audiobooks on poetry.
I really enjoy Scottish Poet Robert Burns, poems like "Gie her a Haggis!"
"And Ae Fond Kiss," and you can find his and 100,000 other works on Audible and download
a free book of your choice by going to Audible.com/DNews!
Check it out, and please subscribe for more DNews.
You all are great.