{"id":440,"date":"2012-10-22T13:04:02","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T13:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=440"},"modified":"2012-10-22T16:09:06","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T16:09:06","slug":"the-chaos-of-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=440","title":{"rendered":"The Chaos of English"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lurking in Bristol Wireless’ IRC<\/acronym> channel earlier this morning, I was made aware of the poem The Chaos by Gerald Nolst Trenit\u00e9<\/a> (1870-1946), who was a Dutch writer, traveller and teacher. <\/p>\n

The Chaos demonstrates many of the idiosyncrasies of English spelling and first appeared as an appendix to his 1920 textbook, Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen*<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It is reproduced below in all its glory for your delight. <\/p>\n

\nDearest creature in creation,
\nStudy English pronunciation.
\nI will teach you in my verse
\nSounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
\nI will keep you, Susy, busy,
\nMake your head with heat grow dizzy.
\nTear in eye, your dress will tear.
\nSo shall I! Oh hear my prayer.<\/p>\n

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
\nDies and diet, lord and word,
\nSword and sward, retain and Britain.
\n(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
\nNow I surely will not plague you
\nWith such words as plaque and ague.
\nBut be careful how you speak:
\nSay break and steak, but bleak and streak;
\nCloven, oven, how and low,
\nScript, receipt, show, poem, and toe.<\/p>\n

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
\nDaughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
\nTyphoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
\nExiles, similes, and reviles;
\nScholar, vicar, and cigar,
\nSolar, mica, war and far;
\nOne, anemone, Balmoral,
\nKitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
\nGertrude, German, wind and mind,
\nScene, Melpomene, mankind.<\/p>\n

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
\nBouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
\nBlood and flood are not like food,
\nNor is mould like should and would.
\nViscous, viscount, load and broad,
\nToward, to forward, to reward.
\nAnd your pronunciation’s OK
\nWhen you correctly say croquet,
\nRounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
\nFriend and fiend, alive and live.<\/p>\n

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
\nAnd enamour rhyme with hammer.
\nRiver, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
\nDoll and roll and some and home.
\nStranger does not rhyme with anger,
\nNeither does devour with clangour.
\nSouls but foul, haunt but aunt,
\nFont, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
\nShoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
\nAnd then singer, ginger, linger,
\nReal, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
\nMarriage, foliage, mirage, and age.<\/p>\n

Query does not rhyme with very,
\nNor does fury sound like bury.
\nDost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
\nJob, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
\nThough the differences seem little,
\nWe say actual but victual.
\nRefer does not rhyme with deafer.
\nFoeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
\nMint, pint, senate and sedate;
\nDull, bull, and George ate late.
\nScenic, Arabic, Pacific,
\nScience, conscience, scientific.<\/p>\n

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
\nRachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
\nWe say hallowed, but allowed,
\nPeople, leopard, towed, but vowed.
\nMark the differences, moreover,
\nBetween mover, cover, clover;
\nLeeches, breeches, wise, precise,
\nChalice, but police and lice;
\nCamel, constable, unstable,
\nPrinciple, disciple, label.<\/p>\n

Petal, panel, and canal,
\nWait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
\nWorm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
\nSenator, spectator, mayor.
\nTour, but our and succour, four.
\nGas, alas, and Arkansas.
\nSea, idea, Korea, area,
\nPsalm, Maria, but malaria.
\nYouth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
\nDoctrine, turpentine, marine.<\/p>\n

Compare alien with Italian,
\nDandelion and battalion.
\nSally with ally, yea, ye,
\nEye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
\nSay aver, but ever, fever,
\nNeither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
\nHeron, granary, canary.
\nCrevice and device and aerie.<\/p>\n

Face, but preface, not efface.
\nPhlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
\nLarge, but target, gin, give, verging,
\nOught, out, joust and scour, scourging.
\nEar, but earn and wear and tear
\nDo not rhyme with here but ere.
\nSeven is right, but so is even,
\nHyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
\nMonkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
\nAsk, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.<\/p>\n

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
\nIs a paling stout and spikey?
\nWon’t it make you lose your wits,
\nWriting groats and saying grits?
\nIt’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
\nStrewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
\nIslington and Isle of Wight,
\nHousewife, verdict and indict.<\/p>\n

Finally, which rhymes with enough —
\nThough, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
\nHiccough has the sound of cup.
\nMy advice is to give up!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Source: Wikisource<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

* = English pronunciation exercises<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lurking in Bristol Wireless’ IRC channel earlier this morning, I was made aware of the poem The Chaos by Gerald Nolst Trenit\u00e9 (1870-1946), who was a Dutch writer, traveller and teacher. The Chaos demonstrates many of the idiosyncrasies of English spelling and first appeared as an appendix to his 1920 textbook, Drop Your Foreign Accent: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,17],"tags":[16,22],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translation-and-language-related-matters","category-oddities","tag-english-usage","tag-language"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":451,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}