pnustedt Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 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 and aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shes, 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, consciene, 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, sourging. 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!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the gentleman Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 I gave up half way through - phew!, well I am Austalian! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Mist Posted January 17, 2004 Share Posted January 17, 2004 you got that far good one gent and geez mate if you can't spell Australian, you been away too long Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the gentleman Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 you got that far good one gent and geez mate if you can't spell Australian, you been away too long Terrible isnt mate, what a bad typo Ill try again Oztralian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Mist Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 absolutliey corect Gentleman On a more serious note we bagged out again on blueys mate, off the jetty, got a freezer full now and the missus is even chucking undersize back without my help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the gentleman Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 You are making me homesick Bronco, I used to love going down to Glenelg or Seaton? Jetty with my crab net - good memories mate. Are you cooking them in salted water?, a couple of beers and a few crabs - Somboon Bep! (perfect) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink Mist Posted January 18, 2004 Share Posted January 18, 2004 Glenelg of course, and using water from sea at the end of Broadway My Missus spent about 2 hours today filling containers with crab meat (probably 1/2 to her and other in the jar) we made a vinegar and chillie one mmmm , been having lots of crab sandwiches but feel a bit of gout coming now Funniest part was I got savaged by an undersized Sandy, twice, while trying to put it back in the drink Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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