[Original Article] 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. Fe0ffer 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
Damn... I read the whole thing through and there were quite a few places where I fumbled. A good number of those words are above my vocabulary, but it's nice to see how America's doing.
I just read that whole thing outloud. Even for me, that was pretty tough, but I was able to rise above. c:
No wonder English is one of the (if not the) hardest if the languages to learn. I think I got most of them though. Thank you free reading. @Machina: Query is pronounced sort of like kwery. Very is more like vary.
I read it about halfway through out loud (to poor finalform) and then I gave up as my whole brain just died. :3
I know how to pronounce both. I'm very used to seeing and hearing the word query. And who hasn't seen very? No matter how many times I say it, they still rhyme.
Probably because English Pronunciation doesn't make any sense to most of the French :v Anyway, I read about half of it aloud, and it went pretty well except for a few stumbles.
I could scour the thread looking for what you mean, but I suppose I should just ask. What are you referencing? I rather liked this. Thank you for posting it.
Maybe I am pronouncing some stuff wrong but certain sections of that had pretty bad flow. Had to reread potions because I assumed I got it wrong, but even slowly couldn't get it sound right in my head. As for the Query and Very debate, those to my knowledge should not rhyme. They are close and would make an acceptable half-rhyme, but isn't quite there.
That's a very long poem. I'll probably finish it some other time maybe. Tripped me up in a few places though.
Only words I didn't know of the meaning of in the poem were the names of the Muses. I'm usually 2 for 9 on Muse identification and I'm probably going to forget these two and stay 2 for 9. Secondary note: Query and very objectively don't rhyme. The -ry ending doesn't cut it for anything but a sloppy slant rhyme and query is pronounced with a long 'e' sound and very with a short. Discussion over.
You didn't of? What does of mean in this context? I still do not understand. What Muses are we speaking of? I have a feeling I should read more into mythology for this.
I accidentally deleted the word 'know'. Sorry about that. Muses are the things that inspire artistic creation and that sort of thing in Greek mythology.
