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."
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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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