(i hope i dont spam needlessly, and that this hasn't gone the rounds
recently...but the conversation lately recalled this to me..)
THE CHAOS
[A poem by 'Charivarius', a.k.a. G. Nolst Trenite, for people - including
native
English-speakers! - who think they know English pronunciation. It's also an
interesting study object.]
> Dearest creature in creation,
> Study English pronunciation.
> I will teach you in my verse
> Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
> I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
> Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
> Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
> So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
>
> Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
> Dies and diet, lord and word,
> Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
> (Mind the latter, how it's written.)
> Now I surely will not plague you
> With such words as plaque and ague.
> But be careful how you speak:
> Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
> Cloven, oven, how and low,
> Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
>
> Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
> Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
> Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
> Exiles, similes, and reviles;
> Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
> Solar, mica, war and far;
> One, anemone, Balmoral,
> Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
> Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
> Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
>
> Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
> Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
> Blood and flood are not like food,
> Nor is mould like should and would.
> Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
> Toward, to forward, to reward.
> And your pronunciation's OK
> When you correctly say croquet,
> Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
> Friend and fiend, alive and live.
>
> Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
> And enamour rhyme with hammer.
> River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
> Doll and roll and some and home.
> Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
> Neither does devour with clangour.
> Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
> Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
> Shoes, goes, does (*). Now first say finger,
> And then singer, ginger, linger,
> Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
> Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
>
> Query does not rhyme with very,
> Nor does fury sound like bury.
> Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
> Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
> Though the differences seem little,
> We say actual but victual.
> Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
> Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
> Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
> Dull, bull, and George ate late.
> Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
> Science, conscience, scientific.
>
> Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
> Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
> We say hallowed, but allowed,
> People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
> Mark the differences, moreover,
> Between mover, cover, clover;
> Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
> Chalice, but police and lice;
> Camel, constable, unstable,
> Principle, disciple, label.
>
> Petal, panel, and canal,
> Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
> Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
> Senator, spectator, mayor.
> Tour, but our and succour, four.
> Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
> Sea, idea, Korea, area,
> Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
> Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
> Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
>
> Compare alien with Italian,
> Dandelion and battalion.
> Sally with ally, yea, ye,
> Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
> Say aver, but ever, fever,
> Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
> Heron, granary, canary.
> Crevice and device and aerie.
>
> Face, but preface, not efface.
> Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
> Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
> Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
> Ear, but earn and wear and tear
> Do not rhyme with here but ere.
> Seven is right, but so is even,
> Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
> Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
> Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
>
> Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
> Is a paling stout and spikey?
> Won't it make you lose your wits,
> Writing groats and saying grits?
> It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
> Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
> Islington and Isle of Wight,
> Housewife, verdict and indict.
>
> Finally, which rhymes with enough --
> Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
> Hiccough has the sound of cup.
> My advice is to give up!!!
(*) No you're wrong. This
is the plural of "doe"!
Note: "THE CHAOS" was written in the 1930's (I think I read once . .), which
would explain a few words, if they, by themselves, didn't betray their
'chronologically
challenged', geographical, as well as social origin already : it is based
on the
pronounciation of 'the King's English'.