Laurie4b Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. 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!!! English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité From: http://spelling.wordpress.com/2007/09/05/english-pronunciation/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ester Maria Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 :lol: That crazy language of yours... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescrappyhomeschooler Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 That hurt my head! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gailmegan Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 That was fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I love this! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 Wow! That was long. There were a couple of words I am not familiar with, but I'm not going back through it to find them. PS It would be interesting to see how many of those words are not actually English words, but words borrowed from another language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 This is precisely why ds is quite sure everyone should just speak Latin and avoid English altogether. :lol: We shall be reading this for school. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaT Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 That was fun, but exhausting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 (edited) :lol: I love it wiki has an interesting article on the pronunciaiton of "ough". Edited December 20, 2011 by gardenmom5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~Tara~ Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 I confess, I only read half of it...it was just too long. I clearly did not know what I was getting into opening this thread LOL I'll come back to finish though. I just have to go do stuff, you know, like, laundry, and teach math to my 5 yr old oh and make sure my 12 yr old doesn't Gorilla glue his fingers together. :~p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mimm Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 How does anyone ever learn English as a second language? :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karen A Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 My second grade daughter is constantly doing "word sorts" at school, following certain language patterns/rhymes. I just sent this to her teacher :). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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