A little background: A man who tried to learn English language in the family where everyone speaks Hindi most of the times, comes out to be a Britisher by his written musings only, not at all by his pronunciation.
The state of confusion which this funny English language gives, is quite described in this poem. Indeed it’s a long one, but worth reading.
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 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.
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,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, 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 than 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 can actually but virtual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull and mull 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,
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 four.
Gas, alas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area.
Psalm, Maria but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien and Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, eye, whey and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
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,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and Jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation is a pailing 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,
Verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough or dough, or cough ?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My final advice is to give UP !!!!









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