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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Education / "You Deserve A Medal" If You Can Pronounce These Words (806 Views)
8 Words We Pronounce Wrongly Everyday – Everyone Is Guilty Of No 5 / How Do You Pronounce These Words? / If You Can Pronounce This Whole Poem, You Speak English Better Than 90% Of Us (2) (3) (4)
"You Deserve A Medal" If You Can Pronounce These Words by Hammefeez: 2:27pm On Jul 18, 2015 |
The poem below is a condensed
version of ‘The Chaos’ by Gerard Nolst
Trenité , written in 1922.
It features a ridiculous number of
words that are difficult to pronounce,
so don’t feel bad if you have to refer to a
dictionary. I certainly did!
If you fancy yourself something of a
professional linguist, then this
challenge is for you. English is
notoriously difficult to learn, as the
language has so many exceptions to the
rules. Even for a native English speaker,
this poem presents quite a few challenges!
Check it out and see how you fare.
If you can pronounce all
of the words, you speak English better
than 90% of the population.
Here we go!
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 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 not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
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, Real, zeal,
mauve, gauze, gouge 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, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
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.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, 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, stowed, solace,
gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or
cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
-----------------------------------
Now tell me your scores in percentage and
how many time you checked dictionary. |
Re: "You Deserve A Medal" If You Can Pronounce These Words by Teryfik(m): 2:32pm On Jul 18, 2015 |
Op am frm IBADAN........#FTC sweet ooo |
Re: "You Deserve A Medal" If You Can Pronounce These Words by amani337(m): 2:42pm On Jul 18, 2015 |
i deserve medal 4 not reading it. |
Re: "You Deserve A Medal" If You Can Pronounce These Words by saxwizard(m): 3:04pm On Jul 18, 2015 |
amani337: bravo |
(1) (Reply)
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