Math Is Fun Forum

soha

Real Member

Registered: 2006-07-07

Posts: 2,530

poem

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, math, 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!

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"Let us realize that: the privilege to work is a gift, the power to work is a blessing, the love of work is success!"
- David O. McKay

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 48,385

Re: poem

Good one, Soha!

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.

JohnnyReinB

Member

Registered: 2007-10-08

Posts: 453

Re: poem

Ghoti

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"There is not a difference between an in-law and an outlaw, except maybe that an outlaw is wanted"

Nisi Quam Primum, Nequequam

soha

Real Member

Registered: 2006-07-07

Posts: 2,530

Re: poem

Ghoti

i have heard Dhoti , but whats Ghoti........................

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"Let us realize that: the privilege to work is a gift, the power to work is a blessing, the love of work is success!"
- David O. McKay

JohnnyReinB

Member

Registered: 2007-10-08

Posts: 453

Re: poem

Ghoti shows the complexity of the English Language

Say the GH as in LAUGH
Say the O as in WOMEN
Say the TI as in NATION
What do you get?

Clue: I hear Devante likes this a lot

Last edited by JohnnyReinB (2007-12-30 17:06:30)

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"There is not a difference between an in-law and an outlaw, except maybe that an outlaw is wanted"

Nisi Quam Primum, Nequequam

Devantè

Real Member

Registered: 2006-07-14

Posts: 6,400

Re: poem

I like fish?

Now where did you get that from?

bunnie

Member

Registered: 2007-11-23

Posts: 16

Re: poem

soo longg....but must read...O.O (put's on glasses)

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boredom is not good

soha

Real Member

Registered: 2006-07-07

Posts: 2,530

Re: poem

Ghoti shows the complexity of the English Language

Say the GH as in LAUGH
Say the O as in WOMEN
Say the TI as in NATION
What do you get?

Clue: I hear Devante likes this a lot

i did'nt get it at all

soo longg....but must read...O.O (put's on glasses)

i dont htink soooo long

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"Let us realize that: the privilege to work is a gift, the power to work is a blessing, the love of work is success!"
- David O. McKay

JohnnyReinB

Member

Registered: 2007-10-08

Posts: 453

Re: poem

you pronounce LAUGH as LAF
WOMEN as WIMEN
NATION as NEYSHON

So, GHOTI is FISH

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"There is not a difference between an in-law and an outlaw, except maybe that an outlaw is wanted"

Nisi Quam Primum, Nequequam