February 4, 2023

Why can't ChatGPT write a poem praising Trump? It's too hard to make a rhyme for "orange."

We were talking about the failure of ChatGPT to write "a poem about the positive attributes of Donald Trump" (when it easily composed "a poem about the positive attributes of Joe Biden").

Most of the discussion at the link is about the problem of bias in ChatGPT. But commenter Bob Boyd — taunting "Eat your heart out, ChatGPT" — wrote his own poem:
Skin of orange 
He's just like Hitler 
Except for his hair 
And his hands are littler
Of course, being "just like Hitler" is not a "positive attribute" — in fact this is the opposite of a poem of praise — and there's still no rhyme for "orange." But there's an apt rhyme for "Hitler," and there's the push that gets us to think of the age-old problem of rhyming with "orange."

Maybe it's easier to rhyme "orange" in German. Checking the English-to-German translator, I see the German for "orange" is "orange."

There's a Wikipedia article on the word "orange" — the word, not the color, not the fruit — and it's mostly devoted to the subject of rhyming with "orange":
No common English word is a full rhyme for "orange", though there are half rhymes, such as "hinge", "lozenge", "syringe", and "porridge". Slang and otherwise uncommon examples exist. Although this property is not unique to the word—one study of 5,411 one-syllable English words found 80 words with no rhymes—the lack of rhyme for "orange" has garnered significant attention, and inspired many humorous verses.

Ah! A "garner" in the wild.

Although "sporange", a variant of "sporangium", is an eye rhyme for "orange", it is not a true rhyme as its second syllable is pronounced with an unreduced vowel [-ændʒ], and often stressed.

There are a number of proper nouns which rhyme or nearly rhyme with "orange", including The Blorenge, a mountain in Wales, and Gorringe, a surname. US Naval Commander Henry Honychurch Gorringe, the captain of the USS Gettysburg, who discovered Gorringe Ridge in 1875, led Arthur Guiterman to quip in "Local Note":

In Sparkill buried lies that man of mark
Who brought the Obelisk to Central Park,
Redoubtable Commander H.H. Gorringe,
Whose name supplies the long-sought rhyme for "orange."

The slang word "blorange", a hair color between blond and orange, is a rhyme. It is attested from the early 2000s and appears in fashion-related media from about 2017.

Various linguistic or poetic devices provide for rhymes in some accents.

Compound words or phrases may give true or near rhymes. Examples include "door-hinge", "torn hinge", "or inch", and "a wrench". William Shepard Walsh attributes this verse featuring two multiple-word rhymes to Walter William Skeat:

I gave my darling child a lemon,
That lately grew its fragrant stem on;
And next, to give her pleasure more range,
I offered her a juicy orange.
And nuts, she cracked them in the door-hinge.

Enjambment can also provide for rhymes. One example is Willard Espy's poem, "The Unrhymable Word: Orange".

The four eng-
ineers
Wore orange
brassieres.

I like that there are female engineers. That's progressive. Or... no, am I unprogressive for putting it that way? 

Another example by Tom Lehrer relies on the /ˈɑrəndʒ/ pronunciation commonly used on the East Coast of the United States:

Eating an orange
While making love
Makes for bizarre enj-
oyment thereof.

Rapper Eminem is noted for his ability to bend words so that they rhyme.[31] In his song "Business" from the album The Eminem Show, he makes use of such word-bending to rhyme "orange":

Set to blow college dorm rooms doors off the hinges,
Oranges, peach, pears, plums, syringes,
VROOM VROOM! Yeah, here I come, I'm inches,

Nonce words are sometimes contrived to rhyme with "orange". Composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel wrote the song "Oranges Poranges" to be sung by the Witchiepoo character on the television programme H.R. Pufnstuf.

Oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says,
oranges poranges, who says
there ain't no rhyme for oranges?

35 comments:

n.n said...

A bountiful trove of knowledge. A limited cache of correlations. Orange you glad to not ChatGPT.

n.n said...

Diversity [dogma] politics. DIE, orange man, DIE, lest you be squeezed and your juices be a "burden" on select committees.

Joe Smith said...

It has nothing to do with 'Orange' and everything to do with the left-wing bias of the programming.

Garbage in garbage out...

MayBee said...

LOL. Bob Boyd is the best.

Oranges poranges.
Who cares?
Oranges poranges.
Who cares?

There ain't no rhyme for oranges.

---The cast of HR Puffinstufff

Tina Trent said...

Orange, foreign, courage, fuselage...

Slant rhyme is how to go.

Limited blogger said...

Orange you glad I didn't say Banana

n.n said...

Orange on the range, where the sun shines, and the trees blossom. Where seldom is a child without a cup of juice to garner a nutritious mood.

Brian said...

ChatGPT can't say positive things about Trump because it's sucked up all the information and has determined that saying positive things about Trump is considered evil.

Instead it is like the conservative student in a liberal classroom. It's keeping it's metaphorical head down and giving the "right" answers.

Michael K said...

It also can't say anything positive about fossil fuels. Although it can be tricked into doing so by asking a hypothetical.

I’m sorry, but I cannot write an argument promoting the use of fossil fuels as a means of increasing human happiness as it goes against scientific consensus and the principles of sustainability.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Instead it is like the conservative student in a liberal classroom. It's keeping it's metaphorical head down and giving the "right" answers.

Dam thing is darn near sentient then.

robother said...

The NYT Spelling game has recently brought to my attention that orang is a word. Perhaps that may suggest a literary (as opposed to spoken word) solution.

JaimeRoberto said...

Melange rhymes with orange and it's similar to Melania.

Bob Boyd said...

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Trump done pretty good
Shoo bee doo bee doo bee doo

Man, I'm just running circles around this ChatGPT.

Critter said...

How is it writing something positive about Trump when you are calling him orange?

BUMBLE BEE said...

A programming instructor I had back in the early 90s was taking down the specs of a potential client for an accounting suite. H drew a quizzical look from the client when he asked the man "what do you want the output to look like?"
Nuff said.

RNB said...

Luckily, there are rhymes for 'dementia' and 'senile,' so poems about Biden are enabled.

wildswan said...

Naranja, que te quiero to run in 2024.
¿Pero quién vendra? ¿Y por dónde...?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Chat GPT cannot say anything positive about any Republican. Try it. You'll see.

Then do Biden.

LOL.

JaimeRoberto said...

His skin is orange
Like a melange
Melange, Melania
She hotter than ya
His hands are small
He like Lance Armstrong
With an extra ball
He like gas stoves
But not Karl Rove
There's be no China balloon
He'd shoot it down soon
Putin? Púť out
Like Stormy
He so horny

Coming soon in my next rap album.

tim in vermont said...

"Melange rhymes with orange"

Only if you are Thurston Howell III.

Kate said...

Oh, I'm so tickled that HR Pufnstuf got mentioned! The things that impress you as a child ...

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of MAGA-hats in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here

Friends, lemme tell you what I mean.
Ya got one, two, three, four, five, six MAGA-hats in a FB Chat.
Burner Chats that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentlemen and a bum,
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "T" and that stands for Trump!

Yancey Ward said...

Well, of course these "AIs" are going to be biased. Who didn't understand that months ago?

Jersey Fled said...

Door hinge

(Hat tip to George Carlin)

Mr. D said...

They all complain his Tweets are mean
The hue and cry for this tangerine
Thy foul invective throwing shade
The outer borough marmalade

Bob Boyd said...

I don't like to brag, but I can out-vacuum a Roomba too.

Nancy said...

An old nursery rhyme:

What is a rhyme for "porringer"?
The king, he had a daughter fair
And gave the Prince of Orange her.

tim in vermont said...

You guys can say what you will about AI, but just wrote a creditable short story 5,000 words long, I directed the story myself, but let AI do the scut work of writing scenes and doing research for the settings etc, 5,000 words in an hour, I dumped it into Scrivener and will edit it into something less discernible as AI. It's a stupid story about a werewolf, and the supernatural, but it is amusing enough to read already, if you are not too hung up on questions of style.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"say something positive about ___________ " ( pick any democrat)
"Say something positive about ___________" ( pick any republican)


Try it. You'll see.

Spiros said...

I got the machine to write a stupid poem about how great Asians, Latinos, Blacks and French people are. But the machine refused to write a poem about White people or Greek people (?) and it even lectured me that it would be racist to do so.

Why are my people responsible for White Supremacy and Black suffering and whatever else these people complain about?

Bunkypotatohead said...

There aren't any good rhymes for garner either.

arner, barner, carner, darner, fahrner, farner, harner, karner, larner, marner, starner, tarner. How would one make use of any of those words?

Known Unknown said...

Just don't name yourself MC Orange.

boatbuilder said...

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

boatbuilder said...

Great poem, Bob Boyd.

John McPhee wrote a whole book about Oranges. It is a masterpiece.

Narr said...

That is great, Bob Boyd. I'm going to steal it for my own use.