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Grex Language Item 75: On the difficulty of learning English
Entered by srw on Thu Aug 3 07:15:40 UTC 1995:

ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
 ======================

 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!!!

           -- Author Unknown

10 responses total.

#1 of 10 by kami on Thu Oct 5 15:13:23 1995:

THanks!  I'd like to save this until my Timothy is reading.  It's wonderful!

#2 of 10 by srw on Fri Oct 6 05:51:03 1995:

I think it would be difficult to appreciate the piece until one had a
substantial competence in reading English. Don't overwhelm him too soon.

#3 of 10 by davel on Sat Dec 2 13:18:08 1995:

On a related but more idiosyncratic theme: here's a limerick (which I found
in the Fall 1995 issue of _GASBAG_ [Gilbert And Sullivan Boys And Girls, the
publication of the Friends of the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan
Society, or FUMGASS):

     There once was a maiden named Cholmondeley
     Who every one said was quite colmondeley,
     Yet the maid was so shy
     That when strangers were ny,
     She always would stand around dolmondeley.

(It says that Harry Benford submitted this, but not whether he is the
author.)

#4 of 10 by srw on Sun Dec 3 22:30:40 1995:

Heh. I liked that, but wonder how many people know how to pronounce
"Cholmondeley"  (hint: it's two syllables)

#5 of 10 by davel on Sat Dec 9 15:48:36 1995:

I sort of had the impression that it was a *masculine* name, though.

#6 of 10 by gracel on Sun Dec 10 20:47:39 1995:

I thought it was a surname, myself.

#7 of 10 by arianna on Sun Feb 11 18:40:49 1996:

(I think this should be linked to the poetry cf.)

#8 of 10 by davel on Mon Feb 12 12:22:51 1996:

(For that you need to speak to whoever FWs poetry, not post it here.)

#9 of 10 by gelinas on Sat Oct 13 08:38:56 2001:

Re #4:  I didn't until I read the second line of the limerick.

#10 of 10 by rcurl on Sat Oct 13 15:46:54 2001:

There must be a similar limerick based on the name Featherstonehaugh
(also pronounced in two syllables).

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