[HN Gopher] Rhyme as Reason
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       Rhyme as Reason
        
       Author : samclemens
       Score  : 12 points
       Date   : 2024-04-25 19:08 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bigthink.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bigthink.com)
        
       | redconfetti wrote:
       | "Beer before wine and you'll feel fine; wine before beer and
       | you'll feel queer."
       | 
       | "Beer before liquor, you've never felt sicker. Liquor before
       | beer, you're in the clear."
        
         | bongodongobob wrote:
         | Good example of people believing nonsense because it rhymes.
        
           | actionfromafar wrote:
           | But have you tried while rhyming it?
        
       | office_drone wrote:
       | I have a hypothesis that the reason humans are more likely to
       | believe things that rhyme is because of the effort involved in
       | creating the phrase. Comparing saying something vs saying
       | something that rhymes, the latter takes more time, more effort,
       | and you need to check that the end product makes sense. Whoever
       | came up with the phrase probably put in a lot of thought.
       | 
       | Similarly, I think that humor is more convincing than simple
       | words because, to come up with the punchline, the comedian must
       | have looked at the situation from every available angle. The
       | existence of humor is a costly signal that shows someone else
       | really thought it through.
        
       | barbariangrunge wrote:
       | Anyone care to speculate why humans like rhymes in the first
       | place? They do feel meaningful and important, but why?
        
         | nicklecompte wrote:
         | This is pure speculation: I suspect our ancestors used music +
         | simple words for communication long before we evolved modern
         | human language. Although language outstripped music in terms of
         | its precision and utility, as an evolutionary hangover we have
         | a preference for language with musical qualities.
         | 
         | Some """evidence""" for this claim:
         | 
         | - The most interesting fact is that gibbons sing similarly to
         | humans, intentionally targeting a pure tone so other gibbons
         | can harmonize in octaves. They seem to use this for bonding and
         | communicating their vocal state. So there's precedent for
         | musical communication in one of our closest relatives.
         | 
         | - Music seems useful for hominids: just like modern humans, our
         | pre-language ancestors possibly used "work songs" as a way for
         | large groups of foragers to ping their status. Prairie dogs do
         | the same with their chattering - if one critter goes quiet, the
         | rest quickly realize something is wrong. There is no evidence
         | that human language evolved after human music, but it seems
         | more reasonable to me than the alternative.
         | 
         | - On the other hand, it's well-known that modern humans can be
         | easily misled by speakers who use intellectual affectations to
         | spritz up nonsense, and in general we tend to make lazy
         | judgments about speakers and accept/deny their arguments
         | accordingly. So, assuming this quirk didn't evolve very
         | recently, I could see how "uses language musically" has the
         | same (dishonest) social signal of intelligence as "uses big
         | words all fancy-like," simply because 400,000 years ago the
         | most musically talented hominids commanded the most social
         | authority (even maybe when they shouldn't).
        
         | dragontamer wrote:
         | A rhyme's meaning is afforded,
         | 
         | as long as it isn't contorted.
         | 
         | But some might deny,
         | 
         | as the rhyme might belie;
         | 
         | The truth of the subject distorted.
        
         | lupire wrote:
         | Intelligence loves patterns. It's a natural form of data
         | compression and error checking.
        
       | dragontamer wrote:
       | > One day, a talented lass or fellow, a special one with face of
       | yellow, will make the Piece of Resistance found from it's hiding
       | refuge underground, and with a noble army at the helm, this
       | Master Builder will thwart the Kragle and save the realm, and be
       | the greatest, most interesting, most important person of all
       | times. All this is true because it rhymes.
       | 
       | The Lego Movie.
        
       | svat wrote:
       | The bulk of Sanskrit literature, including everything technical
       | -- astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, politics, etc -- is in
       | metrical verse. This was true both when things were primarily
       | passed down orally, and when writing/printing was more
       | widespread. Verse truly makes things more memorable.
        
       | nmstoker wrote:
       | Reminds me of the shudder of fear that "stranger danger" induces
       | in parents, even though evidence suggests massively more risk to
       | children is from those known to them. Stranger danger also ties
       | in with other recall aspects reinforcing it further.
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-25 23:00 UTC)