Pronunciation - B. Shaw

Turns out this is called The Chaos and it's byGerard Nolst Trenité
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!!!

- B. Shaw

http://crimsun.tumblr.com/post/2999167799

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• the chaos

[brumplum]

oh, BTW it is a short "ass" (as in donkey) not a long "ass" (as in arse) :-P

[hazhaz101]

@brumplum Yeah, there were a few things in there that I messed up. Thanks though (this is in response to your other comment too.)

[Toyman6000]

Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité, 1870-1946

author?

[hazhaz101]

@Toyman6000 oh, wow. Thank you.

[Coolstefanable]

That's great! I like how many of the words I would pronounce different even more, because of our accents. Like Leisure.

[hazhaz101]

@Coolstefanable I'd thoughht of making a "Differences between US and UK english" video but that's been done to death so i thought this was an ok way to highlight some of that stuff.

[hazhaz101]

@ProcrastinateDaily what last bit.

i have no memory of filming this video.

i woke up clutching a bloody crucifix and this video was on my hard drive.

[ProcrastinateDaily]

Blimey. Well read. It's like tongue-twister but for your brain as well.

Also, the ending was more terrifying than normal, not gonna lie. It's like you were possessed.

[- Amy]

[bushbasher46]

little fag

[brumplum]

I've now seen/heard about dozen versions of this before attempting to make my own and this is BY FAR the best (most are American, and frankly, they just can't do it)!

I'd query about four or five of your words but as your natural speach is fairly RP, of course you have a major advantage ;-)

[TheCAAStudioVlog]

Wow...cool! I know that is not a very profound comment but it was my way of telling you I liked it! :) -FUR

[TheUnderspoken]

good god, good job.

[XxDrunkenpigxX]

....The cat in the hat sleeps on a mat?

[Toyman6000]

totally watched your lips the whole time