Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse
and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, 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,
OK, 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 say 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.
Feoffer 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, ass,
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!!!”