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From: Chris Elvidge <chris@x550c.mshome.net>
Newsgroups: sci.lang,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: /ru:m/ for Rome and the Gods of the Copybook Headings
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:04:05 +0100
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On 15/07/2024 at 13:34, Aidan Kehoe wrote:
> 
>    “We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace.
>     Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
>     But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
>     That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in
>     Rome.”
> 
> The old pronunciation of <Rome> as /ruːm/ in English was mentioned on a
> Languagehat thread the other day,
> https://languagehat.com/war-words/#comment-4604383 . OED2 comments “The pron
> (ruːm), indicated by the old spelling Room(e) and by the rime with doom etc.
> was retained by some educated speakers as late as the 19th cent.”
> 
> Kipling came out with it in 1919; I read the poem at intervals and this
> interval happened to be shortly after the Languagehat thread.
> 

Yes, but Kipling was a poet. Poets have been known to take liberties 
with pronunciation to get their poems to rhyme.
It seems 'forced rhyming' is a thing. Google 'forced rhyme in poetry'.


-- 
Chris Elvidge, England
I WILL NOT STRUT AROUND LIKE I OWN THE PLACE