Royal English

Min engelska har börjat vandra in i nått sorts vardags snack blanding av svenkt amerikanskt tyskt bland språk. Inte riktigt proper "royal english". Men med denna lilla tungvrickare skall du nog få ordning på det.
Läs upp det här. Högt. Och ja, det ska rimma A-A-B-B.

The Chaos
By Dr. Gerard Nolst, Trinity, 1870-1946)

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy,
Tear in eye, your hair you’ll tear,
So will I; oh, hear my prayer.

Pray console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it.
Just compare heart, hear and heard;
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written.)
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say, said, pay, paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak:
Say break, steak but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Clover, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say devoid of trickery
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Thames, examining, combining,
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

Chatham, brougham, renown but known,
Knowledge, done but gone and tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scheme, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth,
Billet does not end like ballet,
Banquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like would and should.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rhyme with darkie.

Viscous, Viscount, load and broad,
Toward, forward, to reward,
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you say correctly croquet.

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live,
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.
Mark the difference moreover
Between mover, plover, Dover.

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, put police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, penal and canal,
Wait, plait, surmise, promise, pal,
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”.

But it is not hard to tell.
Why it’s pall, mall and not Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol and iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour,
But enamour rhymes with hammer.

Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert but dessert, address,
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home,
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul but foul and gaunt 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 and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rhyme with very
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual but victual.

Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut, granite and then mite.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas and Arkansas.

Tea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse, but clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Say aver but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver,
Never guess, it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half but Ralph.

Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device and eyrie,
Face and preface but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, virgin.
Ought, out, joust and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with near and ere.

Seven’s right, but so is even,
Hyphen, rougher, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp and cork and work.

Pronunciation – thin of Psyche
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying “grits”

It’s a dark abyss and tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewifery, verdict, indict.

Don't you thin so, reader, rather
Saying lather, bather, father?
Which of these rhymes with enough:
Though, through, bough, cough, hough or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.