The Chaos of English Pronunciation

A popular poem by a Dutchman G. Nolst Trenite presenting numerous absurdities of the English letter-to-sound correspondence. The version presented here is a relatively short and lightweight one - try the full one at http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j17/caos.php There are a few stress irregularities and three obvious errors in my rendition - 'transom' should be pronounced with / s /, not / z /, 'dies' the other way round and 'doctrine' should have a short / i /. Still, hope you might find my attempt at Received Pronunciation educational as to the best of my knowledge there has not been one yet.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• G.
• Nolst
• Trenite
• linguistics
• phonetics
• fanatics
• the
• chaos
• poem
• British
• English
• RP
• Received
• Pronunciation
• Międzyszkolny
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• Nysa
• 2011
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• kojot1974

[kojot1974]

Dzięki za miłe słowa;)

[djweaverbeaver]

Housewife: it's not referring to a married woman who manages a household. It's an outdated British term for a sewing box and is pronounced 'HUHZ-if'. After all, they're highlighting the trickier pronunciation (ie. mostly unknown definition)!

[kojot1974]

@djweaverbeaver Nice one, didn't know this one. Thanks for the feedback:)

[RichMaxwell]

He couldn't even make it past 0:23 "Dies" and 'Dice' do not sound the same.

[kojot1974]

@RichMaxwell And you, sir, couldn't even bother to read the description, where I own up to that mistake. Let alone have the common decency of addressing me directly.

[andrea10tacle]

Love this! Is there an American English version?

[kojot1974]

@andrea10tacle Most of the good ones on Youtube are American English ;)

[LaVFdeJL]

@kojot1974 Wow I thought you WERE a native speaker and maybe had some kind of local pronunciation for some vowel sounds. I am totally impressed! Great job. You know what they say, Poles are good at languages! Part of my family is of Polish origin (and I have a Polish last name), and seeing how difficult Polish is, all other languages must sound easy to you!!! :)

[greatbritishmale]

I can never tell when to say 'u' as in 'cup', or 'u' as in 'put', and I'm English! New found respect for foreigners trying to pull off a British accent.

[brumplum]

Dopiero gdzies w polowie zaczelem sie zastanawiac czy czytajacy nie jest wychowany na terenie Wilekiej Brytanii. Gratulacje! Ja jestem urodzony i wychowany w Anglii ale z polskiej rodziny wiec jestem uczulony na te sprawy, i w dodatku ucze angielskiego. Inni zauwazyli kilka usterek ale wiekszosc rodowitych Anglikow nie wie jak wymawiac niektore wyrazy.

[kojot1974]

@xxpowwowbluexx I happen to know it's not the same word. However, according to Longman Pronunciation Dictionary they ARE pronounced the same in standard British English. It does list the pronunciation with short "o" rather than the dipthong "oh" but treats it as acceptable rather than recommendable.

[xxpowwowbluexx]

"Wont" is not the same as "won't," nor is is pronounced the same.