the chaos

Dearest creature in Creation

Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse,

Sword and award, retain and Britain

(mind the latter how it's written!)

Made has not the sound of bade,

Pay-paid, say-said, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,

Say break, steak, but bleak and streak,

Previous, precious, recipe and choir;

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger

And then singer, ginger, linger.

Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair;

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

But it is not hard to tell

Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual.

Sally, but ally; yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Pronunciation - think of psyche!

Is a paling, stout and spikey:

Islington, but Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict, but indict!

Don't you think so, reader, rather,

Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rhymes with 'enough':

Though, through, plough, cough, hough or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of 'cup'....

My advice is: give it up!

Here is another one:

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 dreadful 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 pear and bear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose
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, then thwart and cart.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!