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 Susy, 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 plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Billet does not sound like ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet,
Font, front, wont; want, grant, and grand.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury;
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth
Job, jab, bosom, oath;

Though the difference seems little
We say actual but victual;
Refer doesn’t rhyme with “deafer”,
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion;
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver;
Heron, granary, canary,
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

And your pronunciation’s o.k.
When you correctly say croquet
Rounded, wounded; grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend; alive and live.
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.
Soul but foul, and gaunt but aunt,
Crevice and device and eyrie;
Face but preface, but efface.
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, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp; and cork and work;
Pronunciation—think of psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict!
Finally, which rhymes with “enough”
Though, through, plough, cough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of “cup,”
My advice is—give it up!