English Spelling: Unclassified

["S.North" <north -at- HGL -dot- SIGNAAL -dot- NL>]

Over on the Usenet in a local dutch group which probably doesn't make it
as far as you (otherwise I'm wasting everyone's time), there has been a very
interesting discussion been going on about consistency in spelling. It was
all started by an Englishman, but the Dutch have been defending themselves
pretty well (did you know that English has 14 ways to represent the sound
[sh]: shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion, ocean,
nauseous, conscious, chaperone, schist, fuchsia, pshaw? ... I'd never
counted them!).

Anyway, one of the gems that has come out of the discussion is the following
poem that I would like to submit for everyone's amusement:

        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 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.

        Now, try scholar, vicar, and cigar.
        What about solar, mica, war and far?
        Or one, anemone and Balmoral,
        Kitchen, lichen, laundry and 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 but aunt,
        Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

        Shoes, 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, 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!!!

                G. Nolst Trenito (1870-1946)

I was quite impressed ....


=================     Gravity is a myth; the Earth sucks !     =================
 Simon North FISTC                               Quality Group, Software R&D
 north -at- hgl -dot- signaal -dot- nl                            Hollandse Signaalapparaten BV
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