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Kitten
02-11-2010, 17:06
Saw this earlier on Twitter and thought it quite fun - So many of us here on BD love our language ;) Unfortunately no credit though.



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.

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, ###, 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!!!

Feek
02-11-2010, 20:06
That's fantastic!

semi-pro waster
02-11-2010, 20:12
Rather impressive, someone's spent a lot of time working out that. :)

Dymetrie
02-11-2010, 21:05
I got bored halfway through, but did continue.

Other than the remarkably uncommon words it would worry me if anyone had difficulty with it...

My daughter is going to hate me, isn't she?

:D

Kitten
02-11-2010, 21:47
I don't know, I wonder how many people in the street could pronounce 'corps' correctly...But, I rather think the point is more to show the eccentricity & diversity of the English language with similarly spelled words being spoken very differently than to really ask if you know how to pronounce them.

Glaucus
02-11-2010, 22:13
I got bored halfway through, but did continue.

D

I got fed up on the 3rd line,

Goose
02-11-2010, 22:54
Iz wack, init bruv.

Darrin
03-11-2010, 00:44
I don't know, I wonder how many people in the street could pronounce 'corps' correctly...

Heh, I've seen that one hideously bastardized many times. Then I ask people how they say Marine Corps. Then they get it...


It's "CORE" by the way...

Desmo
03-11-2010, 08:01
I like that :)

Shows how potty out language really is :D


Talking of words and spelling, my 5 year old niece came home yesterday with a list of new words she has to learn how to spell....including Granddad ::/: Think a quick call to the school is needed.

Will
03-11-2010, 10:16
That really is rather clever. As a Frog I think I did a rather good attempt! :)

Greenlizard0
03-11-2010, 10:27
That's pretty cool!

That really is rather clever. As a Frog I think I did a rather good attempt! :)

Beats most in this country. ;)

Pumpkinstew
03-11-2010, 18:05
That really is rather clever. As a Frog I think I did a rather good attempt! :)

A lot of the variation comes from the words of French derivation, so you could argue you've got a head start on the odd ones.:p

semi-pro waster
03-11-2010, 19:47
That really is rather clever. As a Frog I think I did a rather good attempt! :)

You sound infinitely more English than I ever will, in fact you sound more RP than most English people I know. :p

Will
03-11-2010, 19:57
haha! :D

By RP does one mean received pronunciation?

I have my saaaaarf eeeeeest moments, but I do try and speak proper like.

G|mp
03-11-2010, 21:32
He is quite posh old Frenchy :D

Will
03-11-2010, 22:49
Awww Ade... x

semi-pro waster
03-11-2010, 23:32
By RP does one mean received pronunciation?

One does, me ol' china. ;)

I've been told I speak reasonably well "for a sweaty" but it's a completely different level to have the neutrality that Received Pronunciation displays.

Will
04-11-2010, 00:09
I rather like your accent :o

Desmo
04-11-2010, 08:41
Get a room you guys........again!

Von Smallhausen
04-11-2010, 12:28
Not many people understand what I'm saying 30 miles south of Tyneside.

:D

Desmo
04-11-2010, 22:15
Pardon?

Darrin
05-11-2010, 04:05
Guess I should be glad I live on this side of the pond?

In all seriousness about the only person from over there I have a hard time understanding is Ozzy. Mind you, I think Sharon is the only one who "speaks" Ozzy...

Knipples
05-11-2010, 08:15
I like my funny accent. I am even educating Kitten in the ways of Bristolian, shes actually pretty good these days. ;)

Will
05-11-2010, 08:30
:D

Kitten
05-11-2010, 12:53
Oi am too there me babburrrrr!

lostkat
06-11-2010, 14:07
lol Kitten :D

Will. I have one word for you: raisins ;)

Will
06-11-2010, 15:22
:D :D :D