posted
Dearest creature in creation Study English pronunciation I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse
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 and stead, but bleak an streak
This phonetic labyrinth Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth and plinth Billet does not rhyme with 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'
And your pronunciation is OK When you correctly say croquet Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve Friend and fiend, alive and live We say hallowed, but allowed People, leopard, towed but vowed
Soul but foul, haunt but aunt Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger And ten singer, ginger, linger Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge Marriage, foliage, mirage and age
Query does not rhyme with very Nor does fury sound like bury Reefer does not rhyme with deafer Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer
Pronunciation - think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spiky? 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, hough, or tough? Hiccough has the sound of cup... My advice is - give it up!
This is a poem written in 1870 by a Dutch fellow called Gijsbert Trenité. He made it for a book about English pronunciation.
posted
I've been looking for that poem off and on for ages! One of my teachers in middle school showed it to us - I don't remember why though.
quote: Nor does fury sound like bury
Bury is apparently one of the words that I pronounce oddly since it often rhymes with fury when I talk (not always, I'm kind strange like that) and my friends have made fun of me for it.
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Britts think I'm a Pom, Aussies are astonished to se I don't have an Israeli accent, Israelis think I'm German, Americans think I'm South African and some mistook me for a Kiwi.
posted
Wow, that poem is hard to read, even for a native speaker of English! Yes we do have very strange pronunciation, don't we? It's every word for himself, and no guarantees on any rules whatsoever.
For me pen and pin are the same, and made does rhyme with bade, and query with very. What is Feoffer? Is groats supposed to rhyme with wits? I must have been saying it wrong all these years. Not that I have much occasion to speak about groats, anyway.
How is rowlock pronounced? Do you leave off some consonants in it too? What is hough and how do you say it?
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