English for purists

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,

Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse

It will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear.

So shall I: Oh hear my prayer:

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it.

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).

Made has not the sound of bade,

Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak:

Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via;

Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir;

Cloven, oven; how and low;

Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe.

Hear my say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore;

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles;

Exiles, similes, reviles;

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,

Thames, examining, combining;

Scholar, vicar and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far.

Desire-desirable, admirable-admire;

Lumber, plumber; bier, but brier;

Chatham, brougham; renown but known,

Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone; Balmoral;

Kitchen, lichen; laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German; wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind;

Tortoise, turqoise, chamois-leather,

Reading, reading; heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth

Gives: moss, gross, brook, brooch; ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,

Which is said to rhyme with darky.

Viscous, Viscount, load and broad;

Toward, to forward to reward.

And your pronunciation's O.K.

When you correctly say: croquet,

Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;

Friend and fiend; alive and live.

Liberty, library; heave and heaven;

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed;

People, leopard; towed but vowed.

Mark the difference moreover

Between mover, plover, Dover;

Leeches, breeches; wise, precise;

Chalice, but police and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label;

Petal, penal and canal;

Wait, surmise, plait, promise; pal.

Suit, Suite, ruin; circuit, conduit

Rhyme with: "shirk it" and beyond it;

But it is not hard to tell

Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular; gaol and iron;

Timber, climber; bullion and lion;

Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair;

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Ivy, privy; famous, clamour

and enamour, rhyme with "hammer".

Pussy, hussy and possess,

Desert, but dessert, address,

Golf, wolf; countenants; lieutenants

Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb;

Doll and roll, and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul but foul; gaunt but aunt;

Font, front, won't; want, grand and grant;

Shoes, goes, does (*), now first say "finger",

Then: singer, ginger, linger.

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge;

Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rhyme with very

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;

Job, job; blossoms, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual.

Seat, sweat; chaste, caste; leigh, eight, height;

Put, nut; granite but unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,

Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull; Geoffrey, George; ate, late;

Hint, pint; senate, but sedate.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific;

Science, conscience, scientific.

Tour, but our, and succour, four;

Gas, alas, and Arkansas;

Sea, idea, guinea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern; cleanse and clean;

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion with battalion,

Sally with ally; Yea, Ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess - it is not safe:

We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.

Heron, granary, canary;

Crevice and device and eyrie;

Face but preface, but efface,

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass;

Large, but target, gin, give, verging;

Ought, out, joust and scour, but scourging;

Ear, but earn; and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with "here" and "ere".

Seven is right, but so is even;

Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;

Monkey, donkey; clerk and jerk;

Asp, grasp, wasp; and cork, work.

Pronunciation - think of psyche -

Is a paling, stout and spikey,

Won't it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying "groats"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel,

Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather

Saying lather, bather, father!

Finally, which rhymes with "enough",

Though, through, plough, cough, bough or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup".

My advice is . . . give it up!!!

(*) No you're wrong. This

is the plural of "doe"!