Correct English

[Doc Vernon]

Thanks to John Strange!

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud (typical ), and we’ll be honest with you, we struggled with parts of it.

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!!!

[eric fisher]

In school, Not of fish, We would garnish marks if 75% of them were pronounced correct..ly. If spelt correct..ly would have got.. not gotten.. 100% Unacceptable errors would've earned a cane.. ing. Me, never finished High School but earned many canes. enjoyed trying it but alone of course. Cheers, Eric

[Ivan Cloherty]

dain't see nowt wrong wit tabove in and nowt difficult#1, all words we were taught in secondary school and all easy to pronounce, they may be difficult for today's school children, but they were second nature in the era most of us were brought up in, because all we had were books and the radio on which the announcers spoke correctly. Even Jock, snowy and skipper talked correctly in Dan Dare, today's mispronunciation is down to pure laziness and text..........innit!

[Peter F Chard]

You deserve a medal just for typing the whole thing out, let alone pronouncing it !! Regards Peter in NZ

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Vernon.
I had no trouble with not only reading but understanding what the words meant, and my schooling was to say the least second class, mainly my fault. Those verses would make a good exercise for today's schools, as Ivan says today's children would struggle with 70% of them.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

In junior school the teacher we had loved to do 'spelling bees'. We had to sit there until we got all the words correct. One day we even lost half our lunch time because of this. But it did me well as now I can out spell any of the younger ones today. u no wat i meen?

[Doc Vernon]

Like many here I too only went to what was then Std 6 that was then still four Years away from Matric as it was called or STD 10.
No problems with reading,spelling (well just typo errors mainly) and my Maths was always good!
Managed to get in the RAF with that education,as well and passed with Flying Colours with all my Exams,I put this down to the life experiences we all mainly had!
Cheers

Yes Today the Kids really seem to struggle,and I cannot understand it!
Are the Teachers a lot worse than when we were at School???
Cheers

[Ivan Cloherty]

L


Are the Teachers a lot worse than when we were at School???
Cheers

YES! YES! YES!

I have said it three times because the computer told me once was not enough?????

[Rodney Mills]

Yes I could understand it and say it. A terrific post. With your permission I would like to send it to friends who are studying English. I have been teaching them about "Homonyms", (Break and Brake-meet and meat) and this will fit right in. Thank you.


Following is a copy of an article I recently wrote regarding continuing education:

I left Southchurch Hall High School for boys, Southend-On-Sea, Essex, England at age fifteen, perhaps a little better than a functioning illiterate and educated to hew wood, haul water, and stop a bullet for King and country. At age sixteen I joined the British Merchant Navy as a Catering Boy. I sailed with the Port Line, Burries Marks, and finally The Union Castle, where I signed on to UCL's Cooks in Training program.

Something of importance happened that influenced my life. I was a Third Assistant Cook, the bottom of the ladder amongst cooks, on the 'Warwick Castle'. A part of my duties were to carve daily on the first class luncheon cold buffet. Passengers would stop at my station, all nicely dressed, laughing and enjoying life, never making eye contact with a mere cook, for all purposes I was a piece of furniture wearing a cook's hat and wielding a knife. I decided that I wanted, one day, to be on the other side of the buffet table...Just like them...enjoying the good things of life.

The Union-Castle school of cooking was excellent, both in facilities and instructors, however, most of my ships kitchen peers treated the periodic six weeks of instruction as punishment. Not me, I volunteered for as many courses available and pulled every trick to attend, studying all I could about cooking and baking. I passed my Ship's Cook certificate at age 19 and was told I was the youngest to do so. My path upwards within the kitchen was mapped out for me by the instructors with UCL, but at twenty I wanted more from life, I emigrated in 1958 to Canada.

It was in Canada that I realized how poorly I had been educated. I couldn't spell, I had no knowledge of grammar and my math skills ended with the multiplication tables. I spent three weeks salary for a home study course taking high school math, it took me three years of spare time studying. That was the beginning of my self improvement program.

Once again I emigrated, to the US. That was in 1963. I rose from a hotel cook through the ranks to Executive Chef. I entered every Culinary Art Exhibit I could and won awards in every category, hors d' oeuvres, wedding cakes, ice carvings, etc. etc..

My final position as an Executive Chef was at the first hotel outside of Los Angeles Intl. Airport, 700 rooms, banquet facilities for 3,500, a veritable food factory.

Three months after starting this position I was promoted to Food and Beverage Director (moving closer to that other side of the buffet table.) Now I became serious about home study. Accounting became my next passion. I taught myself how to understand and write operating statements, p&l, cash flow, budgets and long term planning.

The company offered me a position to start a remote-site catering company from scratch as Managing Director in the former Empire of Iran. I accepted, and I'd made my first move to the correct side of the buffet table.

I arrived at Mihrabad Airport, Tehran with a nights reservation at the Intercontinental Hotel and $5,000.00 cash and set about forming a company. I left Iran three and a half years later leaving a company doing $15 million in sales, all start-up expenses paid back and in the black for three of those four financial years. I returned to the home office in New York and I was promoted to Senior Vice President of Operations.

Sr. VP meant a lot of International and Intercontinental travel. Courses in sales, marketing, and advertising were next on my agenda while flying as a passenger between countries; pipeline camps, mines, land and off-shore oil rigs; start-ups, fire camps, and revolutions.

In addition, over the years, I had taken courses in Art History; World and American History, Social Studies, and taught myself reasonable Spanish and better German.

Three years later I was promoted once more, to President and CEO.

I had always been able to dodge my terrible spelling and grammar since becoming an Executive Chef, and making sure a good personal secretary overcome my deficiency, and also by dictating letters and memos instead of writing.

In 1982 I made a personal financial plan, the end result being to determine when I could afford to retire. I had just divorced and my plan said I could do it in five years. The love of my life walked into my life, who in turn yearned for retirement. She Joined me in my plan with the settlement I had paid as part of my divorce, which in turn, meant we could retire in three years. Which we did. Foot loose and fancy free we travelled for thirteen years, spending six months a year in Australia; being married out on the desert at Tennant Creek, NWT, Australia, and four months of each year backpacking around Europe.

When the end of our hippy years caught up with us we settled down in South Carolina and still after twenty years here I am are loving every moment of it.

My wife was a special education teacher and has a masters degrees in Education and Special Education. She had kept all her teaching school books on English— both a students copy and the teachers copy from kindergarten through grade twelve of high school. I looked through grade twelve English and it might just as well have been written in Arabic. So , swallowing what little pride I had over my English skills I started reading from the grade one study book, moving on until I was stumped...grade seven, equal to a twelve year old American boy. That was it! It took me two years to complete US high school.

I started to search the web for courses available in college English. I registered on line and passed a college proficiency in English test and was accepted for university study of English. Last month I completed and passed my second year university English test. Altogether from seventh grade to completion of University year two, it has taken a little over five years...I am so pleased, I can spell!

It is said that one is never too old to learn, however, I'm not sure if I am going to continue for English years three and four as I'm taking off until September and I will be seventy-nine...but political science seems interesting.

In summation: I enjoyed a corner office on Madison Ave., Manhattan, overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral and in the distance the top of the Empire State Bld., I dined at Maxim's of Paris, I stayed at the Savoy Hotel in London, and flew on the Concord... and it is better this side of the buffet table than the carving station.

[happy daze john in oz]

Rodders, did UCL send you to the college in Woolwich south London, I did some time there in early 60's.

As to education standards, when employed at the Uni I saw some of the students that went into the Teacher Training course, it is little wonder the standard in school is so poor now. Most were from what we loving called the 'looney' left and were in that course as it was a low entrance score one so it suited most. Now the feral gov has realized that we have a problem so new rules have been drawn up. It will take about ten years but by then we should have teachers who can teach. There is also a new rule that will make all students at all levels have at least one class per week where they have to write by hand and learn how to spell. To date there are some leaving who are unable to sign their name. Computers may be good but they cannot write and without spell check are no good, but sadly most spell checkers are only in American spelling.
I have a small problem as I have a dyslexic ketbosrd.