TEAR AND TIER ARE PRONOUNCED THE SAME BUT TEAR AND TEAR ARE PRONOUNCED DIFFERENTLY
im glad english is my first language because if i had to learn it as a second language id jump off a bridge
*ahem*
The Chaos
by G. Nolst Trenite’ a.k.a. “Charivarius” 1870 - 1946
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,
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, 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”: desirable—admirable from “admire.”
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
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, plinth.
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 is said to rime 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 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,
Rime 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, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime 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 rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won’t, 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, age.
Query does not rime 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, and unite.
Reefer does not rime 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,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and 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 is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
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, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime 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,
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 rimes with “enough”
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”
My advice is—give it up!
I swear, someday I’ll memorize this.
But this is exactly why I try so hard to help people learn to speak English. No matter how much I love it… it seriously makes no damn sense.
(Source: shitweed)
Via A Dreamer Dreams, She Never Dies
I go to quite a few concerts. Rock, Metal, broadway shows, the occasional symphony, local groups and huge acts.
Anything that sounds appealing.
As often as possible I get tickets in a way that will give me an actual ticket, not a printed piece of paper with a scan image on it.
I save the tickets…and use them as bookmarks.
My concert going history is scattered across a bookshelf.
I just picked up “Shadow Moon” by George Lucas and Chris Claremont and was reminded that I went to Warped Tour in 2004.
On reading “difficult” books?
It’s rant time.
I’m currently reading Paradise Lost by John Milton.
For those who are not familiar with it, I’ll give you the general gist.
Remember reading excerpts from The Iliad and the Odyssey in High School? Those ridiculously long “epic poems” from those old people many years ago, maybe the 1930’s*, who wrote poems that were not enjoyable at all to read and had nothing “epic” about them?
Then your teacher retells you the entire story and you go “wow, that would have made an awesome movie! Too bad this Homer dude sucked at writing.”Those books?
Yeah. It’s one of those. Except this was actually written in “English” originally.
And by English I mean really freaking old English. I am yet to see anyone referred to as “sweet” or “a gangster” in this book.
So I’m reading it and as interesting as I have to say it is, I can’t say it’s the most enjoyable read of all time.
In fact I don’t really enjoy reading it much at all.
There is nothing captivating about it. Nothing reaches out and grabs me and says “DON’T YOU DARE PUT ME DOWN, I AM THE BEST BOOK YOU’VE READ IN MONTHS AND YOU LOVE ME. NOW TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF WHILE YOU KEEP READING.”
Does anyone actually enjoy reading books like this?
For a cliche list of examples of “those” books. (You know, those old books from like the 1930’s* or something)
William Shakespear
Geoffery Chaucer
H.P. Lovecraft
Homer
Dante Alighieri
I’ve read my share of each, and I’ve enjoyed my share of each.
Have I enjoyed the actual reading process? Rarely. With these at least.
Now I’m not saying that “old” literature is useless, really I’m not.
But I’m pretty convinced that anyone who says they love reading these books is lying.
The stories are great. The writing simply does not appeal to me.
Don’t get started on “what, is it too difficult for you?”
No, it’s not. However I’m also not so pretentious to say “Yeah well my favorite piece of literature is ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.” like way too many people would.
Because it’s not.
You just want to sound intelligent and mysterious because you read something that’s generally considered difficult.
Go sip your coffee, write on your laptop at Starbucks, and read your digital copy of Canterbury Tales.
Spoiler alert
They never make it to Canterbury.
I’ll cut this short.
My point is simple.
You can love the literature. You should, as far as I’m concerned, respect it.
To actually enjoy reading it is another story. (worst joke ever)
A story can be great while the author’s style is not appealing.
Tolkien could not be a more perfect example…
*By 1930’s I obviously mean anything older than, well, let’s say the 1930’s. Sure, reading a translation of The Odyssey is quite different than reading Lovecraft (who actually has some literature from the 30’s…go figure) but it is most certainly different than reading John Greene or JK Rowling.
At the Christmas lunch in the Prisoner of Azkaban, Trelawney at first refused to join the table, since when thirteen dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die. What she didn’t realise was that Scabbers, or Peter Pettigrew was there too, therefore there were already 13 people at the table. Dumbledore rose to greet her. Dumbledore was killed three books later.
Thanks to iamelectroboyiamelectrogirl
J.K. ROWLING IS A GENIUS.
I never stop being amazed by her.
HOW CAN SOMEONE BE THIS GOOD AT FORESHADOWING
^ And so subtle about it all too.
oh Rowling and oh the people who thought about this? Awesome.
That’s why she’s the Queen of everything.
Mind. Blown.
I need to know.
Did Rowling come out with this? Was this REALLY intentional?
Or is this like in a High School English class when the teacher over analyzes a poem that really meant nothing more than “Fog came into the city, it looked pretty, it left.”*
If this was entirely intentional… I just regained all the respect that I had lost for her previously.
*You know what poem I’m talking about, don’t deny it.
Via Life Augmented
