Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronuciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, buzy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, you 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, measles, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. And you pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Strange does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Soul bu foul, haut but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger.
Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Thought the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. 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. Mark the difference, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaoss, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
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.
Larage, but targer, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scouriging. 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.
Pronunciation-think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spiky? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowd, 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!!!