I was watching a cartoon and part way through a song came on, and it had these two stanzas:

Why do you have to look up to her
Aside from in a literal sense?
Don't you know that a power that big
Comes with a bigger expense?

And can't you see that she's out of control
And overzealous?
I'm telling you for your own good,
And not because I'm-

But in the second stanza the character omits the second half of the rhyming couplet, while keeping to the same five syllables. This is a narrower term than broken/subverted/mind rhyming where the word may be either replaced or omitted: these are hypernyms, but I require a term only referring to cases where the rhyme is omitted.

This is also done in songs where the omitted half of the rhyming is a swear word, often with the intent of the listener completing the intended word mentally.

What is the term for this technique? I don't think it's enjambment as the word doesn't just run over, but ends.


Solution 1:

"mind-rhyme" is the phrase you're looking for. Credit to @sumelic who posted it as comment.

  • Mind rhyme is the suggestion of a rhyme which is left unsaid and must be inferred by the listener. Mind rhyme may be achieved either by stopping short, or by replacing the expected word with another (which may have the same rhyme or not). Teasing rhyme is the use of mind rhyme as a form of innuendo, where the unsaid word is taboo or completes a sentence indelicately.

examples:

There was a young farmer/who took a young miss/to the back of the barn/where he gave her

Susie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell/ Susie went to heaven, the steamboat went to

Hell(o) operator, gimme number nine, And if you disconnect me, I'll chop off your

Behind the refrigerator, there is a piece of glass, And if you slip upon it, you'll fall upon your

Ass(k) me no more questions, I'll tell you no more lies, The cows are in the pasture, making chocolate pies!