Someone challenged Eminem to rhyme "silver," and he crushed the challenge without breaking a sweat.
It started with an innocuous Tweet from a popular account called UberFacts.
"There's no word in English that rhymes with 'silver'" the post read. For long-time English speakers, this isn't exactly news. We've been hearing about random words that seemingly have no rhymes for as long as we've been talking.
A user then decided to call in an expert to confirm whether this was actually true. So, they tagged rapper Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, in a post issuing a challenge: "You have 24 hours!" the user joked. If anyone could disprove the so-called fact, it would be him, the wordplay master himself who once rhymed "calm and ready" with "Mom's spaghetti."
Slim Shady to the rescue. Giphy
Eminem himself responded a day later and completely obliterated the challenge:
"Silver
pilfer
kill fer
Gilbert's
still hurts
steel shirts
Bill Burr
milf word
off kilter
no filter
chill brrrr
feel burn
still slur
will stir
Trent dilfer
Val kilmer
Still third
shield her
he'll squirt
Steven Spielberg
Lil twerp
Wilshire
She'll purr
Kill birds
milk curd
feel worth
Real nerd
Stans documentary I liked your film sir," he wrote in his own post.
If you're familiar with his music, you can almost hear the post in his voice. You can imagine him ripping this off as a verse in one of his songs. You also immediately get the sense that he could have easily kept going, but chose to stop the list there. Point proved.
Oh, sure, you can come up with a list of more words with no rhymes: Purple, month, ninth, opus. Pretty sure Eminem will have no problem tearing the list to shreds.
Eminem's post went viral and was reposted nearly ten thousand times. Thousands of people commented to share their admiration for the hip-hop legend:
"And that's why he's the GOAT" one user wrote.
"He took silver and did a verse of Gold!" another added.
"Eminem can make any word rhyme with any other word," said another.
(Oh, and "pilfer" was right there in front of us this whole time, if you can believe it! Merriam-Webster even chimed in to suggest the little-known "chilver.")
Eminem is known as probably one of the best rappers of all time specifically when it comes to wordplay, rhymes, and clever lyricism.
In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper from 2011, Eminem shared a little bit of his approach. Cooper offered up the notion that nothing in English rhymes with "orange," and Eminem was actually almost offended.
"If you're taking the word at face value... nothing is going to rhyme with it exactly," he said, noting that the art is in twisting and contorting words and phrases. Thinking outside the box. Then, off the top of his head, he ripped off a short rhyme:
"I put my orange four-inch door hinge in storage and ate porridge with George."
Cooper asks him if he walks around all day thinking about rhyming words. "Yeah. All day. I actually drive myself insane with it," Eminem said.
A young Marshall Mathers would read the dictionary even though he wasn't a "good student" academically. "I just thought, I want to have all these words at my disposal, in my vocabulary, at all times, whenever I need to pull them out."
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Why are we so fascinated with a good rhyme?
You have to admit that reading or listening to Eminem's creative rhymes for "orange" and "silver" is oddly satisfying.
That's because rhymes, or even just rhythmic poetry, does something different to our brain than other forms of speech or prose.
"The brain's reaction to poetry indicates a deep, intuitive connection to verse, suggesting that appreciation of poetry is within our neurological structure," according to How Stuff Works.
We also perceive things that rhyme as 22% more true than statements that don't, which is why so many slogans and catchphrases utilize rhyming words. That also plays a big role in why music and song are so emotionally powerful, even when the lyrics are relatively simple.
Finally, it's really pleasing to our brains when we're able to predict words and identify patterns. That's a lot easier and more fun to do in rhyming forms like rap, song, and poetry versus prose and regular speech.
It's awesome to see an artist and master at work in Eminem's post and interview. It should inspire you to think outside the box and remember that, whenever someone tells you that something is impossible, the real art is in proving them wrong.
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A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.