chaos
Charivarius was, naast dichter,
ook leraar Engels, en de combinatie leverde het fraaie lange gedicht Chaos
op, waarin alle Engelse uitspraakproblemen langskomen. Als je goed telt zul
je zien dat er maar liefst achthonderd onregelmatigheden te vinden zijn.
Als je het gedicht foutloos kunt voorlezen ben je echt een kei.
Dearest
creature in creation
Studying English
pronunciation,
I will teach
you in my verse
Sounds like
corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you,
Susy, busy,
Make your head with
heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye,
your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair
seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your
loving poet,
Make my coat look
new, dear, sew it!
Just compare
heart, hear 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: gush,
bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious,
fuchsia, via,
Recipe, pipe,
studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven,
how and low,
Script,
receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud
and trickery:
Daughter, laughter
and Terpsichore,
Branch,
ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles,
similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly,
signal, signing,
Same, examining, but
mining,
Scholar,
vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica,
war and far.
From "desire": desirable-admirable
from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but
brier,
Topsham,
brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge,
done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone,
Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen,
laundry, laurel.
Gertrude,
German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind,
kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise,
chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading,
heathen, heather.
This
phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss,
gross, brook, brooch, ninth,
plinth.
Have you ever yet
endeavoured
To pronounce revered
and severed,
Demon,
lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter,
petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end
like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet,
mallet, chalet.
Blood and
flood are not like food,
Nor is mould
like should and would.
Banquet is not
nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes
with khaki.
Discount,
viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to
forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and
crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your
pronunciation's OK.
Rounded,
wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and
fiend, alive and live.
Is your R correct in
higher?
Keats asserts it
rhymes Thalia.
Hugh, but
hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant,
minute, but minute.
Say abscission with
precision,
Now: position and
transition;
Would it
tally with my rhyme
If I
mentioned paradigm?
Twopence,
threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease,
grease and greasy?
Cornice,
nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but
lullabies.
Of such puzzling
words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with
cautious, tortious,
You'll
envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen
envelope.
Would you like some
more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David,
davit.
To abjure,
to perjure. Sheik
Does not
sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch,
moustache, eleven.
We say
hallowed, but allowed,
People,
leopard, towed but vowed.
Mark the difference,
moreover,
Between 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 is
not 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
Has the A of drachm
and hammer.
Pussy, hussy
and possess,
Desert, but
desert, address.
Golf, wolf,
countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of
flags left pennants.
Courier,
courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but
Cowper, some and home.
"Solder, soldier!
Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than
liqueur or liquor",
Making, it
is sad but true,
In bravado,
much ado.
Stranger does not
rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour
with clangour.
Pilot,
pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front,
wont, want, grand and grant.
Arsenic, specific,
scenic,
Relic, rhetoric,
hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise,
rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh,
but inveigle,
Make the latter
rhyme with eagle.
Mind!
Meandering but mean,
Valentine
and magazine.
And I bet you, dear,
a penny,
You say mani-(fold)
like many,
Which is
wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one
who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel;
pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring
or with stirring?
Prison,
bison, treasure trove,
Treason,
hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance,
severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald
doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton,
paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien,
psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don't be down, my
own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook,
school, wool, boon,
Worcester,
Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds
correct and sterling
Hearse, hear,
hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil,
mezzotint,
Mind the Z!
(A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay
attention
To such sounds as I
don't mention,
Sounds like
pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with
the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names
included,
Though I often
heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes
to unicorn,
Yes, you
know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy
and comely,
I don't want to
speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet
Froude compared with proud
Is no better
than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial,
denial,
Troll and
trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule,
mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll,
gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme
with Raleigh,
But you're
not supposed to say
Piquet
rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid
invalid
Worthless documents?
How pallid,
How uncouth
he, couchant, looked,
When for
Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes,
Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured,
flighty,
Episodes,
antipodes,
Acquiesce,
and obsequies.
Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters
with my razor,
Rather say
in accents pure:
Nature,
stature and mature.
Pious, impious,
limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted,
crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer,
conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan
and artisan.
The TH will surely
trouble you
More than R, CH or
W.
Say then
these phonetic gems:
Thomas,
thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham,
Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I
forget 'em-
Wait! I've
got it: Anthony,
Lighten your
anxiety.
The archaic word
albeit
Does not rhyme with
eight-you see it;
With and
forthwith, one has voice,
One has not,
you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does*. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer,
ginger, linger.
Real, zeal,
mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage,
foliage, mirage, age,
Hero, heron, query,
very,
Parry, tarry fury,
bury,
Dost, lost,
post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job,
blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant,
keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing,
banjo-tuners
Holm you
know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne,
truism, use, to use?
Though the
difference seems little,
We say actual, but
victual,
Seat, sweat,
chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut,
granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and
zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull,
Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint,
senate, but sedate.
Gaelic, Arabic,
pacific,
Science, conscience,
scientific;
Tour, but
our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas,
and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht
and vomit,
Next omit, which
differs from it
Bona fide,
alibi
Gyrate,
dowry and awry.
Sea, idea, guinea,
area,
Psalm, Maria, but
malaria.
Youth,
south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine,
turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with
Italian,
Dandelion with
battalion,
Rally with
ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay,
aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure,
skein, receiver.
Never
guess-it is not safe,
We say
calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary,
canary,
Crevice, but device,
and eyrie,
Face, but
preface, then grimace,
Phlegm,
phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target,
gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust,
and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but
earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme
with here but heir.
Mind the O of off
and often
Which may be
pronounced as orphan,
With the
sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft,
lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it
rhymes with shutting.
Respite,
spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but
Parliament.
Seven is right, but
so is even,
Hyphen, roughen,
nephew, Stephen,
Monkey,
donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp,
wasp, demesne, cork, work.
A of valour, vapid
vapour,
S of news (compare
newspaper),
G of gibbet,
gibbon, gist,
I of
antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse
and divers,
Rivers, strivers,
shivers, fivers.
Once, but
nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish,
Polish, poll and poll.
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, bough, cough, hough,
sough, tough??
Hiccough has the
sound of sup.
My advice is: GIVE
IT UP!