Here's a fun tidbit I just learned about Communist Romania. Like many dictators, Ceausescu believed that his people loved him--and his followers went to a great deal of trouble to make sure his illusion wasn't shattered. They held festivals where he was praised as the great leader--often in "folkloric" songs or poetry. But there was a bit of a problem, apparently, with writing poems about Ceausescu. To put it simply, nothing in Romanian rhymes with Ceausescu. 


This might not have been so much of a challenge for English-speaking poets, who are used to near-rhymes and rhymes that only work with a country accent, or a British accent. We're good at this sort of thing. But Romanian is a Latin language, which means it has a built-in easy rhyme for almost everything--same endings to all feminine nouns, you know, or singular first person verbs, or whatever. And not so many irregular endings either, which makes it easier. So Romanian poets were pretty stumped by this Ceausescu thing. 


I guess they came up with solutions similar to the ones we use in English--using words that almost rhyme, and words that are accepted to rhyme even though they don't quite, and changing words a bit so they do rhyme. Anyway. Even communist poets are creative. The really wonderfully absurd part about all this, though, is that they made it into a book. A Ceausescu rhyming dictionary, if you will. A list of words that rhyme with Ceausescu. Or that rhyme close enough, anyway. This book, apparently, was given to party members when they were promoted. 



Can you imagine even a communist being excited by this gift? Wow. Just what I always wanted. A list of words that don't rhyme. And I'm not even a poet.