{"id":27749,"date":"2012-05-04T10:20:33","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T16:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/04\/tongue-twisting-through-exhaustion.html"},"modified":"2012-05-04T10:20:33","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T16:20:33","slug":"tongue-twisting-through-exhaustion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/04\/tongue-twisting-through-exhaustion.html","title":{"rendered":"Tongue-twisting through exhaustion"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn't get every word ("ague" through me off the most — but, then, how often does that<\/i> come up in conversation?), but it was exhausting just reading through this. Crikey.<\/p>\n

Though it did remind me of Ricky's English lesson (http:\/\/youtu.be\/zjadbW2ZARg<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Ted Ewen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.<\/b>
h\/t to +<\/span>Dennis Smith<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it\u2019s written.)<\/p>\n

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;<\/p>\n

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,<\/p>\n

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;<\/p>\n

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.<\/p>\n

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.<\/p>\n

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation\u2019s OK
When you correctly say croquet,<\/p>\n

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.<\/p>\n

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.<\/p>\n

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,<\/p>\n

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.<\/p>\n

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.<\/p>\n

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.<\/p>\n

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.<\/p>\n

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;<\/p>\n

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.<\/p>\n

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.<\/p>\n

Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.<\/p>\n

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.<\/p>\n

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.<\/p>\n

Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.<\/p>\n

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won\u2019t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.<\/p>\n

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to [never] give up!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIf you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. \u00ab SEXY<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(This is not my 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…\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Google+:<\/strong> View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn't get every word ("ague" through me off the most — but, then, how often does that come up in conversation?), but it was exhausting just reading through this. Crikey. Though it did remind me of Ricky's English lesson (http:\/\/youtu.be\/zjadbW2ZARg). Reshared post from +Ted Ewen If you can pronounce correctly every word in this … Continue reading “Tongue-twisting through exhaustion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":129041,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/30\/doing-write-a-random-english-word-generator.html","url_meta":{"origin":27749,"position":0},"title":"Doing Write: A random English word generator","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Nov-15 1:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doing Write: A random English word generator http:\/\/bit.ly\/1PWCMXo #NaNoWriMo View on Twitter","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4693,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/18\/what_next_freed.html","url_meta":{"origin":27749,"position":1},"title":"What next, “Freedom Fries”?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Jul-03 1:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever-sensitive to non-French terms slipping into French, the government in Paris is banning e-mail. 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More properly, The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. \u00b7 The largest thesaurus resource in the world, covering more than 920,000 words and meanings based on the Oxford English Dictionary \u00b7 The very first historical thesaurus to be compiled for any of the world's languages\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing and Language"","block_context":{"text":"Writing and Language","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/writing-and-language"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8609,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/09\/27\/monkey_tail_mai.html","url_meta":{"origin":27749,"position":3},"title":"Monkey Tail Mail","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Sep-05 3:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"@\" sign is a natural in English, but has been imposed on the rest of the Internet-using world that doesn't have a tradition of it or of the English...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39194,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/13\/english-misuse-pet-peeves-faze.html","url_meta":{"origin":27749,"position":4},"title":"English Misuse Pet Peeves: "faze"","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 13-Oct-13 5:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Dear English Speakers: \u00a0If you want to talk about a person being disconcerted, daunted, disturbed by something, the word you are looking for is faze, not phase.Not even a series of losses at the at the casino could faze Ambassador Mollari, as long as there was someone around who would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11833,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/24\/womblety_cropt.html","url_meta":{"origin":27749,"position":5},"title":"“Womblety-cropt”","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Jan-08 9:03am","format":false,"excerpt":"From Jeffrey Kacirk's \"Forgotten English\" calendar this year: The indisposition of a drunkard after a debauch. -- James Hallwell, Dictionary of Archaic and Provicial Words (1855) What a wonderful word.\u00a0\u00a0...","rel":"","context":"In "Writing and Language"","block_context":{"text":"Writing and Language","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/writing-and-language"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}