Wednesday, April 26, 2000, 7:49:01 AM, Allie wrote:
> True. We take our understanding of it for granted. :-)
English is tough stuff!
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 and heart grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear,
so shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
When you correctly say croquet.
rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
scenic, Arabic, pacific,
science, conscience, scientific,
tour, but our, and succour, four,
gas and alas and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
psalm, Maria, but malaria;
youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
neither does devour with clangour;
soul but foul, and gaunt but aunt,
font, front, wont; want, grand and grant;
shows, goes, does; now first say finger,
and then singer, ginger, linger;
real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
neither does fury sound like bury,
dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth,
job, Job, bosom, oath;
though the difference seems little,
we say actual but victual;
refer does not rhyme with "deafer,"
foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer;
dull bull; and George, ate, late;
mint, pint, senate and sedate,
barn but earn, and wear and tear
do not rhyme with "here" and "ere."
Seven is right, but so is even,
hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen;
monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
ask, grasp, wasp; and cork and work;
doctrine, turpentine, marine;
dandelion with battalion;
sally with ally, yea, ye,
eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay;
pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits
writing groats and saying grits!
Author unknown...
http://reality.sgi.com/relph/humor/english.html
"Found in _Design Engineering_ magazine, January, 1991:
'It is recommended that this be read out loud, as rapidly as
possible, after downing a couple of bottles of lightly chilled
Frascati:
_Hints On Pronunciation For Foreigners_
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done, and now you wish perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a drreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead, it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake, don't call it deed.
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
A moth is not a moth in mother
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's does and rose and loose
Just look them up, and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go and thwart and cart,
Come on, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five.'"
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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