This is a poem that was given in 1974 to Class RII at Stockholm’s Higher General Secondary School for Girls, Norrmalm by a temporary teacher whose name has been forgotten. It is one of the most well-known poems that ‘showcases’ the complexity in English pronunciations. You may find quite a number of variants of this poems from the Internet. The version recorded here is supposedly the original version.
Dearest creature in creation ,
Studying English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse.
Sounds like corpse , corps , horse , and worse —
It will keep you, Susy , busy ,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear —
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer :
Pray console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new , dear, sew it!
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).
Made has not the sound of bade ;
Say – said , pay – paid , laid , but plaid .
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague .
But be careful how you speak :
Say break and steak , but bleak and streak .
Previous , precious , fuchsia , via ;
Pipe , snipe , recipe and choir ;
Cloven , oven ; how and low ;
Script , receipt ; shoe , poem , toe .
Hear me say, devoid of trickery :
Daughter , laughter and Terpsichore ;
Typhoid , measles , topsails , aisles ;
Exiles , similes , reviles ;
Wholly , holly , signal , signing ;
Thames , examining , combining .
Scholar , vicar and cigar ;
Solar , mica , war and far .
From desire to desirable , admirable from admire .
Lumber , plumber ; bier but brier ;
Chatham , brougham ; renown but known ,
From knowledge ; done , but gone and tone ;
One , anemone ; Balmoral;
Kitchen , lichen ; laundry , laurel ;
Gertrude , German ; wind and mind .
Scene , Melpomene , mankind;
Tortoise , turquoise , chamois-leather ;
Reading , reading , heathen , heather .
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss , gross , brook , brooch , ninth and plinth .
Billet does not end like ballet ,
Bouquet , wallet , mallet , chalet .
Blood and flood are not like food ,
Nor is mould like would and should .
Banquet is not nearly parquet ,
Which is said to rhyme with “darky.”
Viscous , viscount , load and broad ;
Toward , to forward , to reward .
And your pronunciation’s
O.K.,
When you say correctly
croquet ;
Rounded ,
wounded ;
grieve and
sieve ;
Friend and
fiend ;
alive and
live ;
Liberty ,
library ,
heave and
heaven ;
Rachel ,
ache ,
moustache ; eleven.
We say
hallowed , but
allowed ;
People ,
leopard ;
towed but
vowed .
Mark the differences, moreover ,
Twixt mover , plover , Dover ;
Leeches , breeches ; wise , precise ;
Chalice , but police and lice ;
Camel, constable , unstable ;
Principle , disciple ; label;
Petal , penal and canal ;
Wait , surmise , plait , promise , pal.
Suit , suite , ruin ; circuit , conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it.”
But it’s very hard to tell,
Why it’s pall , mall , but Pall Mall .
Muscle , muscular ; gaol ; iron ;
Timber , climber ; bullion , lion ;
Worm and storm ; chaise , chaos , chair ;
Senator , spectator , mayor .
Ivy , privy ; famous ; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
Pussy , hussy and possess;
desert , but dessert , address.
Golf , wolf ; countenance ; lieutenants
Hoist , in lieu of flags, left pennants .
River , rival ; tomb , bomb , comb ;
Doll and roll and some and home .
Stranger does not rhyme with anger ,
Neither does devour with clangour .
Soul but foul , and gaunt , 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 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 , job ; blossom , bosom , oath .
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual but victual .
Seat , sweat ; chaste , caste ; Leigh , eight , height ;
Put , nut ; granite but unite .
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer .
Feoffer does, and zephyr , heifer .
Dull , bull ; Geoffrey , George ; ate , late ;
Hint , pint ; senate , but sedate ;
Scenic, Arabic, pacific;
Science , conscience , scientific ;
Tour , but our , and succour , four ;
Core provides a rhyme for door.
Gas , alas and Arkansas .
Sea , idea , guinea , area .
Psalm , but malaria ;
Youth , south , southern ; cleanse , but clean ;
Doctrine , turpentine , marine ,
Compare alien with Italian ,
Dandelion with battalion .
Sally with ally ; yea , ye —
Eye , I , ay , aye , whey , key , quay !
Say aver , but ever , fever ,
Neither , leisure , skein , receiver ,
Never guess — it’s not safe.
We say calves , valves , half , but Ralf .
Heron, granary , canary ;
Crevice and device and eyrie;
Face but preface , but efface ;
Phlegm , phlegmatic ; ass , glass , bass ;
Large , but target ; gin , give , verging ;
Ought , out , joust and scour , scourging .
Ear , earn ; and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with “here ” and “there ” but “ere .”
Seven is right, but so is even ,
Hyphen , roughen , nephew , Stephen ;
Monkey , donkey , clerk and jerk ;
Asp , grasp , wasp ; and cork and work .
Pronunciation — think of Psyche —
Is a paling, stout and spiky,
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing “groats” and saying “grits.”
It’s a dark abyss, or tunnel ,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale ;
Islington and Isle of Wight;
Housewife, verdict and indict .
Don’t you think so, reader, rather
Saying lather , bather , father ?
Finally, which rhymes with “enough ” —
Though , through , plough , cough , hough ,
Or tough ?
Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”
My advice is — give it up!!!
