This poem was on one of the European lists I'm on in response to the EU choosing English to be its official language. He makes a good point, and as a grammarian, I find it entertaining.
The Chaos:
1.
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.
2.
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.
3.
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.
4.
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.
5.
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.
6.
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.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
7.
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.
8.
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.
9.
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.
10.
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.
11.
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.
12.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
Written by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946), a Dutch observer of English.
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2 comments:
From the same list:
German or English?
The European Commission has just announced an agreement
whereby English will be the official language of the EU
rather than German which was the other possibility. As part
of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that
English spelling had some room for improvement and has
accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as
"Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".
Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This
should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less
letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year,
when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This
will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan
be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated
changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal
of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to
akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of
the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they
should go away.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz
year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining
"ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer
kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find
it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru!
And zen ve vil tak over ze world!
- - - - - - - - - -
P.S. I don't know the original source of this disgraceful (but funny) text
but, with apologies to all my very good friends and fellow Europeans in
modern Germany, I can't resist circulating it to others who might appreciate
its satire.
Chris
16/1/2006
Dear Chris,
Certainly to you this text is funny.
To me it is too.
But what struck me as I came half way through it was that it is a fairly accurate description of the better part discussions at EU work meetings that I have attended.
For instance, it took me nearly two days until I interpreted "dee meeted" correctly as "the method".
The participants are people who have been using Ynglish at a professional level for many years.
To primary school students, truck drivers or kitchen staff, having to master English is not funny at all.
In Hungary today, all university students need an exam in a foreign language of their choice.
Many students pick Esperanto because it is easy.
In spite of this "laziness and low motivation bias", after one year of studies they do better in Esperanto than their diligent and enthousiastic comrades do in English, Russian or whatever language they have chosen.
If the EU insists on English, I would suggest another, much more practical solution:
Pronounce it as it is spelled!
"Laulitera prononco" would be a plausible solution, because many intellectuals know how to read and write English though their "elparolo" leaves a lot to be desired, despite long and costly efforts to teach them your language.
I have already heard this solution applied by Italian and Chek delegates in a work meeting.
Sorry to say, their communication (intelligibility) was more successful than that of an English delegate.
Of course, some modificational rules would be needed:
Sh and ch be pronounced as in Esperanto.
Gh be pronounced as ch in German, or as f.
Th be pronounced as ð or þ in Icelandic, or as z.
C could follow the same s-or-k rules as in southern Spanish.
The ph could, however, be replaced by f, because it is difficult to remember when to use it.
In a way this would be some kind of revival of Old English, which would probably be more easy for other Germanic tribes to comprehend than Modern English pronounciation.
Of course, the expressional ease and flexibility of Esperanto would be lost, but at least we might have something learnable.
Evidente, la esprima facilo kaj flekseblo de Esperanto estus perditaj, sed almenau ni povus havi ion lerneblan.
Amike vin salutas
# :-)
Martin Strid
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