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English is a tough tongue
It is very
difficult to speak English.
“You
write Manchester and you pronounce Liverpool”
(Old
Russian Proverb).
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 hearts, beard and heard,
Dies
and diet, lord and word,
Swords
and sward, retain and Britain,
(Mind
the letter, how it’s written).
Made
has not the sound of bade;
Say,
said – pay, paid – 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 and via,
Pipe,
snipe, recipe and choir.
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
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.
Finally,
which rhymes with enough -
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice
is to give up!!!
Excerpt
taken from "The Chaos" G. Noist Trenité
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