The Chaos (Fast Version)

Many of you have been asking me great questions about how you can memorize certain pronunciation patterns. While many letters and letter combinations can have patterns, as you can see by this video, and the accompanying text, English doesn't always follow the rules!

This is a poem by Dutch teacher and author, Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité. This is the modernized, abbreviated version of the original poem. If you want to see me recite the original piece, check it out at my site:

http://web.me.com/signe_dupuy/eslclick.com/Video.html

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, Susy, 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, penal, 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!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• ESL
• English
• poetry
• eslspells
• pronunciation
• learn
• instruction
• teacher
• Signe

[ivancc87]

Why do yo pronounce PANEL like that?

[eslclick]

@ivancc87 Oops. Thanks for pointing that out. There have been alternate versions of this poem, and I thought I had copied and pasted the version that I was reciting. Or, it's simply a typo.

The correct word is penal.

Thanks! I'll correct it right now.

[yalancilarsizi]

do you speak french?

[eslclick]

@yalancilarsizi

Sorry to take so long to reply. I studied French & am part French, mais je ne parlez pas. : (

I speak Japanese and some Spanish.

[telofy]

Thanks for reminding me of that great poem (of which there seem to be quite a few versions). It’s hard to come by such good renditions. I found three words already that I’ve been mispronouncing (hopefully, only in my head).

With “housewife”, I assume, the poet intended /ˈhʌzɪf/—would be too easy otherwise. Also, my dictionaries tell me it’s /ˈeɪgju/. (Something went wrong with /mɛlˈpɒməˌni/, but it was probably just a slip of the tongue.)

I’ve also listened to the unabridged version, well done.

[eslclick]

Thanks for the response.

Actually, there were several words I wasn't sure of, including Melpomene. But even after listening to it online and practicing it several times, I'm not surprised that there are some who think it's pronounced differently.

[jamixxmariie]

Wooooooooow! no dislikes! :D

[niChiEmAjo]

@eslclick thanks!!^^

[eslclick]

Sorry to take so long to reply.

It should be a long "a" sound, like "late". This pronunciation is for a musical instrument.

However, the short "a" sound ("cat") is also correct for "bass". This is a type of fish.

Confusing enough?

[teamhuman2]

needs audio productions of lots of dutch words translated said and rec back to back fast no spaces after listening to so much neder hop its just about putting a face to the framiliar sounds from all the dope nederhop ,,as soon as get time ik will make lots of thizz type productions on new tech house muse stick ,,dankuwell !!,,