I posted this in another thread the other day, but I love it
so much, it needs its own thread.
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation
I shall teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I shall keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy,
Tear in eye your hair you'll tear,
Queer fair seer, hear my prayer!
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
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).
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 gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak;
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Recipe, pipe, studding sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low;
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, ailes,
Exiles, similes, reviles,
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining;
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal and canal
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it".
But is it not hard to tell
Why it's pal, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, goal, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion;
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Ivy, privy, famous. Clamour
Has the "a" of drachm and hammer.
Fussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, dessert, address
From desire - desirable, admirable from admire;
Lumber, plumber, bier but brier/briar;
Chatham, brougham, renown but known,
Knowledge, gone, but done and tone!
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading (the town), heathen, Heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, mirth, plinth!
Billet does not end like ballet,
Wallet, mallet, bouquet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like good,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Bouquet is not nearly parquet,
Which most often rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad;
Forward, toward, but reward.
Ricochet, croqueting, croquet.
Right! Your pronunciation's okay.
Sounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Don't forget: It's heave but heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven
We say, hallow, but allow,
People, leopard, tow and vow.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between, mover, plover, Dover!
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice.
Shoes, goes, does; now first say "finger";
Then say "singer, ginger, linger".
Real, seal; mauve, gauze and gauge.
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth/loath;
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Say "oppugnant" but "oppugns";
Sowing, bowing. Banjo tunes
Sound in yachts or in canoes.
Puisne, truism, use, to use.
Though the difference seems little,
Do say "actual" but "victual".
Seat, sweat, earn; Leigh, light and height,
Put, pus, granite and unite.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffor, Kaffir, zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull; Geoffrey, late and eight,
Hint but pint, senate, sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas (the state),
Balsam, almond. You want more?
Golf, wolf; countenance; lieutenants
Host in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier; tomb, bomb, comb;
Cow but Cowper, some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither devour with clangour.
Soul but foul, and gaunt but aunt;
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close but close,
Paradise, rise, rose and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, and inveigle
make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Serpentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say manifold like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel! Pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure-trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove.
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw
Lien, phthisis, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet - buffet!
Brook, stood, rook, school, wool and stool,
Worcester, Boleyn, foul and ghoul.
With an accent pure and sterling
You say year, but some say yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint -
Mind the "z"! (a gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such words as I don't mention:
Words like pores, pause, pours and paws
Rhyming with the pronoun "yours".
Proper names are not included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny names like Glamis and Vaughan,
Ingestre, Tintagel, Strachan.
Nor, my maiden fair and comely,
Do I want to speak of Cholmondeley
Or of Froude (compared with proud
It's no better than Macleod).
Sea, idea, Guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Sally with ally. Yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, hey, quay.
Say aver but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess, it is not safe;
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device and eyrie,
Face, but preface and grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass,
Bass (the fish); gin, give and verging,
Ought, oust, joust, scour and scourging.
Ear but earn. Mind! Wear and tear
Do not rhyme with "here" but "ear".
Row, row, sow, sow, bow, bow, bough;
Crow but brow. Please, tell me now:
What's a slough and what's a slough?
(Make these rhyme with "cuff" and
"cow")
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen.
Monkey, donkey, clerk but jerk;
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
Say serene but sirene. Psyche
must be made to rhyme with "spiky".
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones like whoop and gunwale,
Islington, but Isle of Wight,
Houswife, verdict but indict -
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying gather, bather, lather?
Tell me, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, cough, lough or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup" -
My advice is - give it up.
- George de Trenite
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