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The Chaos

This poem is here for educational purposes only. Should you find any sort of copyright infingement in this, please e-mail us and we will remove it from these pages. The recordings are courtesy of Martin Kenny, and they can be downloaded for educational purposes as long as no commercial use is made with them.

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THE CHAOS
by Dr. Gerald Nolst (Trenité)

Trenité (1870 - 1946) wrote articles under the pen name Charivarious and this poem appeared in a little booklet entitled "Drop Your English Accent".
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.
Hear Part
 I153 k
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 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 Part
 II190 k
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. 
Hear Part
 III195 k
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. 
Hear Part
 IV229 k
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. 
Hear Part
 V270 k
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. 
Hear Part
 VI247 k
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. 
Hear Part
VII195 k
Petal, panel, and canal, 
Wait, surprise, plait, plaid, 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. 
Hear Part
 VIII223 k
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.
Hear Part
 IX185 k
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. 
Hear Part
 X254 k
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. 
Hear Part
 XI169 k
Finally, which rhymes with enough- 
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? 
Hiccough has the sound of cup. 
My advice is to (not) give up!!! 
 

Some ss: He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts
- studying this poem too long she's in sister Suzy's fish sauce shop selling 
seashells by the seashore
 

Hear Part
 XII202 k

 


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