The poem below is called “The Chaos� by Gerard Nolst Trenité, written
nearly 100 years ago in 1922, designed to demonstrate the irregularity
of English spelling and pronunciation.


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.
Fe0ffer 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.
My advice is to give up!!!

On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:12:15 +0000, Jumper wrote:


The poem below is called “The Chaos” by Gerard Nolst Trenité, written
nearly 100 years ago in 1922, designed to demonstrate the irregularity
of English spelling and pronunciation.

but not designed to tell us anything about the weather, so wny don't you post it somewhere
else - perhaps even where the sun doesn't shine.

On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:37:27 UTC, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:12:15 +0000, Jumper wrote:


The poem below is called "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenité, written
nearly 100 years ago in 1922, designed to demonstrate the irregularity
of English spelling and pronunciation.

but not designed to tell us anything about the weather, so wny don't you post it somewhere
else - perhaps even where the sun doesn't shine.

Someone shagging your wife, are they? You're not Dawlish, are you? God help us all. I found that highly amusing and educative, however off-topic it may be.

Tudor Hughes.

On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 16:14:31 -0800 (PST)
Tudor Hughes wrote:

On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:37:27 UTC, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:12:15 +0000, Jumper wrote:


The poem below is called "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenité,
written nearly 100 years ago in 1922, designed to demonstrate the
irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation.

but not designed to tell us anything about the weather, so wny
don't you post it somewhere else - perhaps even where the sun
doesn't shine.

Someone shagging your wife, are they? You're not Dawlish, are
you? God help us all. I found that highly amusing and educative,
however off-topic it may be.

Tudor Hughes.

At least it was labelled 'OT' so I don't see the problem. I can't
really, as I recently made an 'OT' posting and I may have another for
you all shortly.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks. [Retd meteorologist/programmer]
http://www.scarlet-jade.com/
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.
Posted with Claws: http://www.claws-mail.org/

On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 16:14:31 -0800 (PST), Tudor Hughes wrote:

On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:37:27 UTC, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:12:15 +0000, Jumper wrote:


The poem below is called "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenité, written
nearly 100 years ago in 1922, designed to demonstrate the irregularity
of English spelling and pronunciation.

but not designed to tell us anything about the weather, so wny don't you post it somewhere
else - perhaps even where the sun doesn't shine.

Someone shagging your wife, are they? You're not Dawlish, are you? God help us all. I found that highly amusing and educative, however off-topic it may be.

A pathetically stupid, though sadly typical, response from you. I too like reading highly
amusing and educative posts, including this poem, which is very well known among, e.g.,
authors and editors such as myself, having been around for, as the OP stated, almost 100
years. He offered no justification for suddenly posting it to a newsgroup dedicated to
weather. If he *had* to draw attention to it, perhaps having only just discovered it, then
a URL would have sufficed - there are several to chose from.

Two other people have suggested here that I am Dawlish, both exhibiting their total
ignorance in understanding the ownership of domains. Neither have withdrawn their claim
and offered an apology, which is what I requested. Your posts here indicate that it is
probably a waste of my time to request the same from you.

This racist will continue to post this crap for the next 17 weeks. Fortunately, the British people will not listen to racists.

On 24/02/2016 09:25, dawlish wrote:
This racist will continue to post this crap for the next 17 weeks. Fortunately, the British people will not listen to racists.


YAWN (-_-)

On Wednesday, 24 February 2016 09:25:10 UTC, dawlish wrote:
This racist will continue to post this crap for the next 17 weeks. Fortunately, the British people will not listen to racists.

Why are you getting your knickers in a twist then for something you feel and I agree is not a problem, or do you abhor free speech, unless its your point of view. Mind you that's contradictory as well as I'd put money on it that Joe would be far more likely to help someone in trouble despite of colour than you would.

Idiot.

On Wednesday, 24 February 2016 07:31:48 UTC, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 16:14:31 -0800 (PST), Tudor Hughes wrote:

On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:37:27 UTC, Malcolm Ogilvie wrote:
On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 12:12:15 +0000, Jumper wrote:


The poem below is called "The Chaos" by Gerard Nolst Trenité, written
nearly 100 years ago in 1922, designed to demonstrate the irregularity
of English spelling and pronunciation.




































but not designed to tell us anything about the weather, so wny don't you post it somewhere
else - perhaps even where the sun doesn't shine.

Someone shagging your wife, are they? You're not Dawlish, are you? God help us all. I found that highly amusing and educative, however off-topic it may be.

A pathetically stupid, though sadly typical, response from you. I too like reading highly
amusing and educative posts, including this poem, which is very well known among, e.g.,
authors and editors such as myself, having been around for, as the OP stated, almost 100
years. He offered no justification for suddenly posting it to a newsgroup dedicated to
weather. If he *had* to draw attention to it, perhaps having only just discovered it, then
a URL would have sufficed - there are several to chose from.

Two other people have suggested here that I am Dawlish, both exhibiting their total
ignorance in understanding the ownership of domains. Neither have withdrawn their claim
and offered an apology, which is what I requested. Your posts here indicate that it is
probably a waste of my time to request the same from you.

Yes, it would be a waste of time because you start off by calling me pathetically stupid and that this is sadly typical. Do you seriously expect an apology from someone addressed in that manner? You're as stupid and uncomprehending as Dawlish himself and equally nasty (well, not quite, no-one is). I don't care if you're Dawlish or not; the mere fact that I and some others thought you were is enough of an indication of your nature, and not one I'd cherish.
All this over a harmless and amusing little poem, labelled OT. I've told you my reaction to it; why wasn't yours similar? I get the distinct impression you were looking for trouble, looking for someone to criticise, very like our dear friend.
An apology? You must be joking.


Tudor Hughes