A Poem that sums up the English Language

[Verily British 144]

So, I was browsing a website called Knowable, and I happened across this poem. I feel like it perfectly sums up the entire English language and the strange way we pronounce words almost exactly the same as something completely different.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

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 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!!!

 

(I don't know who wrote this, if it was the OP or if it was copy and pasted. If anyone recognises it, do tell. Here's where I found it.)

[Kivil 1,721]

Am I supposed to be saying this in my head like British people say their words? I probably am because none of this rhymes to me. Just saying

[Verily British 144]

Yeah, probably. I keep forgetting that people outside the UK often pronounce things somewhat differently. I would have thought that some of it would rhyme though. Take the third line, for instance; Corpse corps and horse are all pronounced with an OR but worse, which is spelt the same way, is said differently, with an ER.

[Scrubbed user 3,415]

The English language, easy as a 1st language, extremely difficult as a 2nd.

[Pinkiest Pie 405]

Am I supposed to be saying this in my head like British people say their words? I probably am because none of this rhymes to me. Just saying

I'm British and I am pretty sure we do not talk like that...

 

Anyways, I like the poem. It pretty much does describe the whole language

[Jaxsie (Inactive) 1,343]

Despite also being a native speaker, mechanically speaking, English is a very stupid language I'm quite versed in the mechanics and writing is a passion of mine, but the language is incredibly inconsistent and this poem makes that clear. I honestly feel for people that try to learn it. For those who have, kudos!

[SilyGeny 369]

I'm still improving my english and dang I'm having a lot of struggle to even manage to get my ideas right sometimes, I should maybe go to an English speaking country to maybe get used go speak English on a regular basis

[TeeSix 116]

I've heard a good many English teachers of various levels of experience say that if you can speak and spell English correctly, as far as language abilities go you're basically a god because of how many rules English makes and then the number of times it subsequently breaks them. Us island folk may have created one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, but we also created one of the most confusing and hardest to learn 

[I used to be a stranger 7,988]

What upsets me about english: Their our know rules.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Blue

[Lisa 5,551]

The English language, easy as a 1st language, extremely difficult as a 2nd.

 

Actually English isn't very hard as a second language if you already speak: Dutch, West Frisian, East Frisian and/or North Frisian. Each of those languages are in some way, shape or form mutually intelligible with English. Especially West Frisian, it's extremely similar due to West Frisian being a direct, close ancestor of English during the Anglo-Saxon occupation of Great Britian when most Anglo-Saxons spoke Old Frisian, which then transcended into Old English, which then morphed with French (introduced to Great Britain by the Normans) and formed Middle English. 

 

If you want to keep reading. Middle English then formed Early-Modern English after the 'Great Vowel Shift' which drastically changed the way almost all vowels were pronounced. After that Late-Modern English arose out of the Industrial Revolution and colonialism, and then created Modern English as we know it today. 

History of the English Language 101 with Holiday 

 

On topic: Nice poem.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Holiday

[SparklingSwirls 21,261]

Hmm, I think I have seen that poem before, or at least a variation of it. I suppose it's kina funny

 

Actually English isn't very hard as a second language if you already speak: Dutch, West Frisian, East Frisian and/or North Frisian. Each of those languages are in some way, shape or form mutually intelligible with English.

Indeed, and what's interesting is that that's the case with pretty much every language on Earth; already knowing a similar language makes learning a "hard language" much easier.

 

But Dutch? I've listened to Dutch people speak and I can't understand it... maybe I'm just listening to the wrong dialect?