ANSTHRLD - English is Tough Stuff

[Amy Forsyth]

Here's a wonderful twister I received from a friend.  Enjoy, or not.

~Adela


>> This little poem came about as an exercise for multi-national translation
>> personnel at the NATO headquarters in Paris. English
>> wasn't so hard to learn, they found, but English pronunciation is a
>> killer.
>> 
>> After trying the poem, native French interpreter said he'd prefer to spend
>> six months at hard labor than reading six lines out loud.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> English is Tough Stuff
>> 
>> 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; clamor
>> And enamour rhyme with hammer.
>> River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
>> Doll and droll and some and home.
>> Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
>> Neither does devour with clangor.
>> Soul 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, knob, bosom, transom, oath.
>> Through the differences seem little,
>> We say actual, but also 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 succor, 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, brass, 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 it paling, stout and spiky?
>> 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 advise is to give it up!!!
>> 
>> ______________________________________
>> 
>> 
>> 2. (Response to the preceding poem)
>> 
>> I'll see your Tough Stuff and raise you!
>> 
>> We polish the Polish furniture.
>> He could lead if he would get the lead out.
>> A farm can produce produce.
>> The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
>> The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
>> The present is a good time to present the present.
>> At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
>> The dove dove into the bushes.
>> I did not object to the object.
>> The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
>> The bandage was wound around the wound.
>> There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
>> They were too close to the door to close it.
>> The buck does funny things when the does are present.
>> They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
>> To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
>> The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
>> After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
>> I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
>> I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
>> How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
>> I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
>

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