Re: /ru:m/ for Rome and the Gods of the Copybook Headings

On 15/07/2024 at 13:34, Aidan Kehoe wrote:

    “We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace.
    Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
    But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
    That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in
    Rome.”
 The old pronunciation of <Rome> as /ruːm/ in English was mentioned on a
Languagehat thread the other day,
https://languagehat.com/war-words/#comment-4604383 . OED2 comments “The pron
(ruːm), indicated by the old spelling Room(e) and by the rime with doom etc.
was retained by some educated speakers as late as the 19th cent.”
 Kipling came out with it in 1919; I read the poem at intervals and this
interval happened to be shortly after the Languagehat thread.
 

Yes, but Kipling was a poet. Poets have been known to take liberties with pronunciation to get their poems to rhyme.
It seems 'forced rhyming' is a thing. Google 'forced rhyme in poetry'.
--
Chris Elvidge, England
I WILL NOT STRUT AROUND LIKE I OWN THE PLACE