The weird english language

here you find some pices of text that show some remarkable things about the english language. Especially pronuncation is a difficult thing in english, as you will see... enjoy!

The Chaos

(by Gerard Nolst Trenité)

1      Dearest creature in creation
Studying 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 you'll tear;
    Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
10Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
    Just compare heart, hear and heard,
    Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
    Made has not the sound of bade,
    Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
    But be careful how you speak,
20    Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
    Woven, oven, how and low,
    Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
    Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
    Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
30Same, examining, but mining,
    Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
    Solar, mica, war and far.
From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
    Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
    Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
    Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
40    Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
    This phonetic labyrinth
    Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
    Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
    Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
50Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
    Blood and flood are not like food,
    Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
    Discount, viscount, load and broad,
    Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
    Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
60    Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
    Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
    Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
    Would it tally with my rhyme
    If I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
70But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
    Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
    Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
    You'll envelop lists, I hope,
    In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
    To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
80    Does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
    We say hallowed, but allowed,
    People, leopard, towed but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
    Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
    Chalice, but police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
90Principle, disciple, label.
    Petal, penal, and canal,
    Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,
Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
    But it is not hard to tell
    Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
    Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
100    Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
    Pussy, hussy and possess,
    Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
    Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
    Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
110Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
    Making, it is sad but true,
    In bravado, much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
    Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
    Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
    Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
120    Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
    Mind! Meandering but mean,
    Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
    Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
    Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
130Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
    Prison, bison, treasure trove,
    Treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
    Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
    Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;     Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
140    Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
    Evil, devil, mezzotint,
    Mind the Z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
    Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
    Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
150Though I often heard, as you did,
    Funny rhymes to unicorn,
    Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
    No. Yet Froude compared with proud
    Is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
    Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
160    Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
    But you're not supposed to say
    Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
    How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
    When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
170Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
    Episodes, antipodes,
    Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
    Rather say in accents pure:
    Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
    Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
180    Wan, sedan and artisan.
The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
    Say then these phonetic gems:
    Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
    Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
    Lighten your anxiety.
The archaic word albeit
190Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
    With and forthwith, one has voice,
    One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does*. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
    Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
    Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
    Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
200    Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
    Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
    Puisne, truism, use, to use?
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
    Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
    Put, nut, granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
210Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
    Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
    Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
    Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
    Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
    Bona fide, alibi
220    Gyrate, dowry and awry.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
    Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
    Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
    Rally with ally; yea, ye,
    Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
230Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
    Never guess-it is not safe,
    We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
    Face, but preface, then grimace,
    Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
    Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
240    Do not rhyme with here but heir.
Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
    With the sound of saw and sauce;
    Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
    Respite, spite, consent, resent.
    Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
250Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
    Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
    Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
    G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
    I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
    Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
260    Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
    Won't it make you lose your wits
    Writing groats and saying 'grits'?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
    Islington, and Isle of Wight,
    Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
270Saying lather, bather, father?
    Finally, which rhymes with enough,
    Though, through, bough, cough, hough,
sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup.
275My advice is: GIVE IT UP!


Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer

(I Have a Spelling Checker)

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your please two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


Having chosen EnglishE/H2> Having chosen English as the preferred language in the European Union, The European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study into ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments.

European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staffed at the top level. by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would reseive this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year it was anounsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptiv to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from vords kontainig 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of ze Guvernmnt vud finali hav kom tru.


You're Smarter Than You Thought

 According to a sutdy at Hrravad Unerstiivy msot pelope can raed and unadetnrsd any mxied up wrod as lnog as the frsit leettr and the lsat lteter are in palce. This is bcesaue we raed wrods as a wolhe and not as leretts in oderr.

So y'oure smraetr tahn you thohgut huh?