Here is a big reason why.
There are at least 24 different word-endings that rhyme with blue. TWENTY-FOUR. In a perfectly phonetic language, where everything made sense and was easily readable from the sounds each letter is supposed to make, there would be 1 way to end a word so that it rhymed with blue. How telling children to sound out words works is beyond me.
The most popular way to end a word so that it rhymes with blue is... drumroll... simply ending it with "u." Words like "emu," "impromptu," and "menu" all end this way (as well as 78 others). A lot of the others were words unknown to me before I began this study, many of them being imports from China or Japan, like "sudoku" or "nunchaku."
The second most common way to end a word so that it rhymes with blue is with "ew." Eschew, curfew, and screw (while perhaps not good advice to teenagers) are 3 words that exemplify this trait. 74 words that rhyme with blue end in "ew." Though slightly less plentiful, many more of these words are familiar, everyday words than those than end in "u." There are still some obscure examples here too, though, like "plew," which is a beaver skin of prime quality.
Coming in at 3rd and 4th place, we have "oo" and "ue," respectively garnering 68 and 64 tallies in the rhymes-with-blue column. After that, things slow down considerably, with the next 2 places ("o" and "ou") having markedly reduced numbers of representatives at 28 and 21. From there, "iew" and "oe" each field 10 team members to join the blue-rhyme team. Mostly consisting of words ending in "view" or "shoe," canoe is the lone standout among these words.
After that, "ough," "eu," "ieu," "out," "ooh" and "oup" all have multiple members. Examples include: through, leu, milieu, ragout, pooh, and beaucoup.
Then, we have the lonelies. The guys who try to get set up on blind dates on Valentines only to be stood up. These are the guys who have only 1 member in their club. There are 10 such clubs with only 1 member. They are the "ault," "ewe," "iu," "oue," "ous," "oux," "ueue," "ugh," "ut" and "uu" groups. For posterity's sake, I'll include their names here:
Sault (meaning a waterfall or rapid)
Ewe
Piu (a musical term meaning more)
Moue (a pouting grimace)
Rendezvous
Roux (a cooked mixture of butter and fat, used to thicken sauces)
Queue
Pugh (interjection used to display disgust)
Debut
Muumuu
So, there you have it. All the possible ways to end a word and still have it rhyme with blue. There are at least 387 different words that fit this description and all of them are used in a little story I wrote, which you can read here. This story has been called "harrowing, riveting, and an edge-of-your-seat thrillride." Ok, so it has been called none of those things, but it did make one girl laugh so hard milk came out of her nose.
There will be more discussion and analysis of this story in the days ahead for you to look forward to. I suggest holding your breath in anticipation. Though I offer you, as usual, a chance to take a vocab quiz and let Dictionary.com estimate the number of words you know. Your can wet your feet and whet your appetite by letting this quiz be your first: Blue Rhyming Quiz
And now, I bid you adieu.
