Dearest Creature in Creation,
Study English pronunciation
I will teach 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 you will Tear,
Stamp your feet and pull your Hair.
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Just compare Heart, Beard, and Heard,
Dies and Diet, Lord and Word,
Sword and Sward, Retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter and how tis written).
Now, I surely will not plague you
With such words as Plague 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 in 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, go Forward, to Reward.
Your pronunciation is OK,
When you correctly say Croquet,
Rounded, Wounded, Grieve and Sieve,
Friend and Fiend, Alive and Live.
Ivy and Privy cause a Famous Clamour,
- which, like enamour, rhymes 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 Fouls, Haunt but Aunt,
Front, Font, Wont, Want, Grand and Grant,
Shoes, Goes, Does. Now first say Finger,
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 rhyme with Bury.
Post, Lost, Dost 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,
But Heifer does and also Zephyr.
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 and Vowed.
Mark the differences, Moreover,
Between Mover, Cover and Clover.
Leeches, Breeches, Wise and Precise,
Chalice, but Police and Lice.
Camel, Constable, Unstable,
Principle, Disciple, Label,
Petal, Panel and Canal;
Wait, Surprise, Plait, Promise and Pal.
Worm and Storm, Chaise, Chaos, Chair,
Senator, Spectator, Mayor,
Tour but Our, Succour and Four.
Gas, Alas but Arkansas.
Sea, Idea, Korea, Area,
Psalm, Maria but Malaria.
Youth, South, Southern, Cleanse and Clean.
Doctrine, Turpentine and Marine.
Compare Alien with Italian,
Dandelion and Battalion;
Sally with Alley, Yea and Ye,
Eye, I, Ay, Aye, Whey and Key.
Say Aver but Ever and Fever
Neither, Leisure, Skein, Deceiver,
Heron, Granary, Canary,
Crevice and Device and Aerie.
Face but Preface and then Efface.
Phlegm, Phlegmatic, Ass, Glass but 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 with There.
Seven is right but so is Even.
Hyphen, Roughen, Nephew and Stephen,
Monkey, Donkey, Turk and Jerk.
Ask, Grasp, Wasp, and Cork and Work.
Won't it make you lose your wits!
Writing Groats but saying Grits.
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with Stones, Stowed Solace and 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 ....
My advice is .............. give it up!