Listen to poem:
The -Ane Mistake
We hear, then reason; "-ane" becomes a chain,
Mundane, inane, profane — in one shared refrain.
The ear makes kin; the mind supplies the blame.
Their sound alone condemns an innocent name.
But '-ane' has no common ancestor that's known.
No single root from which these shades have grown.
They're joined by sound, not blood; a chance refrain,
They're strange bedfellows, lodged inside the brain.
'Mundane' simply means the earth beneath our feet.
The dust, the stars, the bitter, and the so sweet.
No dullness is dealt within its core domain;
We dulled the world, then christened it 'Mundane'.
'Profane' stood simply outside sacred ground,
Beyond the shrine, where ordinary life was found.
But thresholds hardened; differences gathered blame.
What stood beyond the sacred, gathered within its shame.
'Inane' was empty, hollow, a void within.
While 'vain' knew emptiness through a different kin.
Their meanings conjoined, though separate they remain—
Two roads to nothing, rhyming within the brain.
Then 'bane' arrived from quite another tree,
In Old English it's 'bana': death and enmity.
No Latin cousins riding on the train—
A killer merely dressed to rhyme with “-ane.”
So 'mundane', 'vain', 'profane', 'inane' and 'bane'.
Parade like blood relations throughout the brain.
The rhyme persuades; resemblance stakes its claim.
The ear invents a bloodline with which to inflame.
We hear resemblance, then presume a chain.
One word's dark shadow stains another's name.
A rhyme becomes a verdict; sound becomes blame.
Those unrelated roots all inherit borrowed shame.
We forge from echoes pedigrees of blame.
Make strangers kin, then stain them in our game.
Each word stood innocent; our ears supplied the stain—
We dulled the world, then christened it “Mundane”.
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