English for Wizards

Discovering rhyme with Dr. Seuss

By John Moore

Dr. Seuss の絵本 "The Cat in the Hat"

Here's an experiment: Go up to a Japanese person and say, "Quick, give me three words that rhyme!" I bet that person will be surprised, confused and maybe a bit angry. Now try the same experiment with any American kid. You'll probably hear a happy shout, like when my son Peter said, "The Cat in the Hat Sat on the Mat!"

This is a little-known language secret: You can't become an excellent English speaker unless you play with rhyme. All English-speaking children do this, and even if you're an adult, you still should try. After all, foreigners learning Japanese practice saying, "Ah-ee-oo-ay-oh." So you must say, "Look at the cook book I took off the hook," and, "I think I'll wink and drink pink ink," etc. Keep saying those lines out loud again and again.

If you don't think this is fun, you haven't read Dr. Seuss. Maybe you remember a recent movie about the Grinch, starring Jim Carrey. Well, Dr. Seuss wrote the story. He also wrote "The Cat in the Hat," which is going to be another movie soon, starring another funny guy, Mike Myers (see http://www.thecatinthehatmovie.com/ ).

Anyway, "The Cat in the Hat" is a magical cat that helps kids have fun. You can read this book online at http://hometown.aol.com/smargolin/ryan/cat.htm .

Are you reading "The Cat in the Hat" now? Notice that the words at the end of every second and fourth line rhyme. So you can easily make a collection of rhyming words, like "play - day," "two - do," "sunny - funny," etc. Read the story out loud, putting stress on the rhyming words.

You also can read two other Dr. Seuss books at the same Web site, which was made by 4-year-old Ryan Margolin of Illinois, USA (and his Dad, I guess). Just change the URL (the combination of letters and numbers that start with http://...) in your browser's address window at the top. Replace "cat.htm" with "onefish.htm," and you can read Peter's favorite "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish" book. Or do "green.htm" to read "Green Eggs and Ham."

Meet Ryan himself simply by erasing "cat.htm" from the URL and hitting the Enter key. At the bottom of his main page, it says this Web site was last revised in 1996, so Ryan is probably 11 now. Why not send Ryan an e-mail and remind him about his old Web project?

Shukan ST: March 28, 2003

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