On Why the HTML Named Character Entity for "♥" Is Called "♥" (People Ask Me This)

The "s" stands for "suit", or alternately the name comes from the practice of referring to the playing card suit identified by a heart symbol as "hearts". The former is perhaps more likely, considering that the original HTML entity definition and the Unicode standard both refer to the character as "black heart suit". See also ♦; ♠; ♣.

That is why.

Regrettable Songwriting: Rhymes

Presented for your consideration, I have compiled a list of rhymes that are Considered Harmful, and will cause me to emit an involuntary loud "BUHHHHH" and mark your band down a few points in my internal spreadsheet.

• Fly/sky/high. Like all of Satan's snares, this rhyme is simple and obvious, a path of least resistance. I cannot count the number of times I've heard some generic clipart rock open with some douchebag singing "I WISH I COULD FLY / INTO THE SKY / SO VERY HIGH". Awesome, thanks for that surpassingly unoriginal expression of a desire all humankind has shared for centuries. Buy a goddamn JetBlue ticket and shut up.
• Friend/end. What end, anyway.
• Together/forever. Not likely -- word on the street has that your significant other is thinking of leaving you for someone who doesn't need to resort to cheap slant rhymes.
• Fire/desire. Betrays pyromaniac tendencies.
• This one's one of those idiosyncrasies in Christian music: word/Lord. I don't think you understand how this works. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that lyrics in contemporary Christian music are typically drawn from a very small pool of set phrases, resulting in most songs having nearly the exact same goddamn words.
• Nigga/trigga. Apparently rap songwriters frequently have need of a couplet that describes a black person using a firearm. They seem to have established a certain standardized way to construct such lyrics. They are proud of this elegant solution and trot it out as frequently as is remotely excusable. Addendum: I just remembered that Elvis Costello managed to pull this one, in "Oliver's Army".
• AB/B or anything similarly constructed. It is often tempting to say that someone's fall from grace was a source of disgrace, but this is prudently avoided.
• Anything/surrender. If you are thinking of rhyming "surrender", stop. It is mathematically impossible to come up with a non-stupid rhyme for "surrender". Also, if you are trying to rhyme "surrender", chances are you are in a nu-metal group -- disband it at once.

Bonus tips:

• The Black Eyed Peas' entire repertoire doubles as a sort of database of regrettable rhymes and is required listening for any aspiring songwriter. A friend whom I consulted on the topic of bad rhymes advised me of Black Eyed Peas single "Where Is the Love", a me-too "We Are the World"-style anthem from the school of thought that seeks to cure every social ill by writing an over-earnest pop song about it and hiring a celebrity to sing on it:

  But if you only have love for your own race
  Then you only leave space to discriminate
  And to discriminate only generates hate
  And when you hate, then you're bound to get irate

  I'm getting irate right now.
• The main hook line of your chorus should ideally not feature a glaring cringeworthy grammatical error. Extra prepositions shoehorned in to hit your syllable quota are particularly inexcusable.
• Never write this verse (courtesy of Slipknot's "Wait & Bleed", truly the spirit of a generation captured in one song if ever I have heard it):

  I wipe it off on a tile, the light is brighter this time
  Everything is 3D blasphemy
  My eyes are red and gold, the hair is standing straight up
  This is not the way I picture me

  If you believe you may have written this verse, contact a doctor right away.
• If you are a suburban white kid trying to write rap, please be careful that you do not mindlessly parrot things you heard in a Wu Tang track. There is a certain unfavorable irony to some goofy teenager obliviously rapping about the Nation of Gods and Earths because he thinks it sounds cool.
• Relatedly, refrain from trying to shoehorn as many Rap Words as you can think of into any rap or conversation about rap. "Spit", "real", the list goes on. It is painfully obvious that you are not comfortable with these terms. Also, if using them requires conscious effort on your part, your notion of what Rap Words are is probably preserved in amber from 1994.
• One of the best rhymes, courtesy of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' "The Tears of a Clown" (a perennial favorite of mine):

  Now, if there's a smile on my face
  It's only there trying to fool the public
  But when it comes down to fooling you
  Now, honey, that's quite a different subject

  The cleverness of this wholly excuses the later "sad/sad/bad/glad".