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How good is your pronounciation?

(121 Posts)
lucid Mon 14-May-12 10:23:18

A friend emailed this to me....you really need to read it out loud. It made me laugh grin

IF YOU CAN PRONOUNCE CORRECTLY EVERY WORD IN THIS POEM, YOU SPEAK ENGLISH BETTER THAN 98% OF THE WORLD'S ENGLISH SPEAKERS.

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.

lucid Tue 10-Jul-12 13:25:30

Hooray...1st prize to Bags... thought no-one would get it. smile

Ariadne Tue 10-Jul-12 13:55:01

Didn't like to mention it for fear of getting reprimanded!

gracesmum Tue 10-Jul-12 14:08:54

I am reminded of Shaw's introduction to "Pygmalion"
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. German and Spanish are accessible to foreigners: English is not accessible even to Englishmen. "

Greatnan Tue 10-Jul-12 14:17:24

Anagram noticed the spelling mistake on 14th May!

gracesmum Tue 10-Jul-12 14:17:37

Just seen the posts on "plover" - I was perplexed and a bit put off the other week to hear it pronounced to rhyme with Dover on Radio 4 - thought it was pullover for a moment and it bothered me.
I remember a poem/song which started
"On the moor I saw a plover
And a peewit called her lover...."
So of course it has to rhyme with "lover" surely?
And don't get me started on "scone" (PS rhymes with "gone"- nothing else acceptable, end of!)

Annobel Tue 10-Jul-12 14:37:15

.....unless referring to the place in Perthshire which is pronounced Scoon!

feetlebaum Tue 10-Jul-12 14:54:44

What is 'pronounciation'? Is it like pronunciation?

AlieOxon Tue 10-Jul-12 14:57:16

How about Kirkaldy? I've heard it mispronounced any number of times on the TV.

Who's the man on those daytime boot sale/auction programmes who always says 'orf' and 'orften' ?

(And why doesn't the spellcheck like 'programmes'?)
(Oh, it doesn't like 'spellcheck' either!)

lucid Tue 10-Jul-12 14:58:53

Sorry Bags....Greatnan is correct Anagram was the first to spot the deliberate mistake.....blush

and feetlebaum....that is how some people pronounce it, including an English teacher I once knew!

Anagram Tue 10-Jul-12 15:10:23

So I did, Greatnan! I'd forgotten that!

Annobel Tue 10-Jul-12 15:30:57

Alie, you must be using the American English dictionary which, I suppose, prefers 'program' which is only used for computer progs in British English.

Annobel Tue 10-Jul-12 15:37:33

My English granny had problems with Kirkcaldy (pronounced Kirkoddy) and Kirkcudbright (Kirkoobry) - and as for Milngavie (Milguy)...!

gracesmum Tue 10-Jul-12 15:43:56

Locally we have Bozeat (Bojhat) and Wavendon which does not rhyme with "wave" at all but Wav sounds like "chav".In Scotland as well the places cited, I remember also Cockburnspath (Co'burnspath) , Penicuik (pennycook) but I couldn't even attempt Welsh place names so can't be smug!

Elegran Tue 10-Jul-12 15:59:05

Kilconquhar in Fife? (pronounced Kinyucker)

Mamie Tue 10-Jul-12 16:34:53

Nothing to do with pronunciation, but on a French expat website today, people are saying they have seen "overbooké" and "overrulé" used in French recently.

AlieOxon Tue 10-Jul-12 18:39:51

Annobel that's the way I was using it, and I thought the dictionary was on here - must check my computer, but I haven't noticed this before!

My mum taught me to pronounce
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch....but I did have to look it up to spell it right!
I think it's now giving the spell check indigestion....

AlieOxon Tue 10-Jul-12 18:44:39

Useless fact:
In 1979 the name appeared in a published crossword, the longest ever word, with the clue
“Giggling troll follows Clancy, Larry, Billy and Peggy who howl, wrongly disturbing a place in Wales (58)”

AlieOxon Tue 10-Jul-12 18:44:58

Sorry about that.

jeni Tue 10-Jul-12 19:20:34

confused

deserving Wed 22-Aug-12 15:20:35

3 more, Kircudbright, Lower Peover.& Cholmondeley.Someone will provide the pronunciations?
smile

janthea Wed 22-Aug-12 15:22:28

Kircuddy and Chumley. Never heard of the other one. Am I right?

Anagram Wed 22-Aug-12 15:27:34

'Peever'

You can find the pronunciation of most words on the internet...

janthea Wed 22-Aug-12 15:30:54

Anagram I think of 'Peever' as it seemed logical, but wasn't sure.

It's a bit like Belvoir being pronounced as Beever!

Bags Wed 22-Aug-12 15:33:07

I think you might be thinking of Kirkoddy (Kirkaldy), janthea. Kircubright is much more straightforward: Keer-coo-bright, but pronounce the bright with a short i as in 'it' and the ght similar to the ch in loch when said with a Scottish accent and with a t at the end.

Clear as mud, eh?

janthea Wed 22-Aug-12 15:44:02

Bags You are right. I was thinking of Kirkoddy. As you say - clear as mud!