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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000055.txt from 2004/09

From: Kat Sleeper <katsleeper@-----.net>
Subj: [DR-L] ENGLISH FUN: NOT DOUBLE REED RELATED
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 17:46:32 -0400

When we recently had a thread like this going for about three seconds
till people started complaining about the irrelevance to double reed
life, I got at least 20 private email messages from people saying how
much they enjoyed this stuff. I no longer have those addresses, so I
hope my screaming warning in the subject header is good enough for
those who get bothered. It's all I have to post, so don't worry.

And, for what it's worth, this was sent to me by an oboe d'amour
player! ;-)

--Kat

>>
>> ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
>> ======================
>>
>> 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.
>> My advice is to give up!!!
>>
>> -- Author Unknown
>>

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