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just found this great poem when musing on the subject of spellings, thought i'd post it here for you to enjoy
The Chaos
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. 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 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 it up!!!
—Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946)
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That is absolutely brilliant, dode! Thanks loads for sharing it. I'd have a great deal of respect for anyone who could read this poem aloud all the way through with no mistakes. It's like a mental tongue-twister; sort of brain-scrambling.
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whoa.
anybody know if it's copywrit? what a lot of fun to set to music!
formerly known as etaoin...
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ER, could you wait a decent interval? Long enough for me to either get or take the fifth?
TEd
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TEd, you are sharp...
<smile> <which shows that I'm not going to write out the multitude of musical puns that are screaming at me to be let out.>
formerly known as etaoin...
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Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
American Heritage Dictionary gives long "e" for Foeffer, definition one who grants land for a fee.
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American Heritage Dictionary gives long "e" for Foeffer
Just goes to show. For every exception...
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American Heritage Dictionary gives long "e" for Foeffer, definition one who grants land for a fee.
Wouldn't that be "Feoff" ( = fief) rather than "Foeff-" ( = foff-with-an-umlaut? )
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hey thanks, Bill! that was fun!
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Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits?
This couplet struck me.. i say groats (buckwheat groats) to ryhme with oats and i say grits, (hominy grits)to rhyme with bits. i didn't realize that this was one of the those words AnnaS might like her grits, but i like my groats, and think buckwheat pancakes to be the best! another is grindstone-- nowdays, most americans would say grind (to rhyme with hind) stone, but i understand it used to be said grind (to rhyme with wind)stn (not quite stin, the vowel is so soft as almost not to be there)
Chitterling is an other, (properly said, chit'lins) and now sometimes spelled chittlins or chittlings.
what other surprizes did you find?
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Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits?
And where did this little piece of flimflammery come from?
According to the AHD, they're not even related. (Well, they come from the same PIE root) Grits is from ME gryt, bran, OE grytt. Groats, pronounced with a long o, if you please, from ME grotes, OE grotan. They both trace back to PIE ghreu-, to rub, grind.
Harrumph!®
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I think, Faldage and Helen, the problem presented in the couplet in question was one of "it"--when to pronounce "it" as "it," for instance, and when to pronounce it "ite" to rhyme with "night." Take a look at the four lines again:
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits?
OK. We've got the long "i" in "spikey"--right? And we've got the long "i" in crazy ol' "Psyche"--right? But then we've got the short "i" in "wits" and "grits"--but then we've got the long "i" in "writing"--which just mixes up the whole "it" configuration--with that long "i."
In other words, the pronunciation rules are driving the versifier in question a bit crazy:
Psyche Writing grits wits spikey
...when to use the long "i" and when to use the short "i"
And then there's the problem of writing (or should that be pronounced "writting" thinks the poor versifier) the word "groats"--which has the extra "a" in it. The poor versifier is really thinking, "Why shouldn't groats be spelled 'grots' and why shouldn't grits be pronounced 'grytes'?" Or something like that.
I don't like this poem personally, but that's just a matter of taste. I tend not to be very crazy about things that rhyme unless they're done pretty masterfully. However, I think that the pronoununciation/spelling problem is what the poet above is getting at--you know, the inconsistency. The very lazy brain wanting a very easy way to slosh through the language. "Grimm's Law" as Hardy describes it in "Jude."
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I love rhyming poetry, especially nonsense poetry. Here are two sterling examples one by Spike Milligan and one by Lewis Carroll. They have such fun with the language, twisting it all out of shape with words made to fit the rhythm of the poem. I love it I do On the Ning Nang Nong On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! And the Monkeys all say Boo! There's a Nong Nang Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo. On the Nong Ning Nang All the mice go Clang! And you just can't catch 'em when they do! So it's Ning Nang Nong! Cows go Bong! Nong Nang Ning! Trees go Ping! Nong Ning Nang! The mice go Clang! What a noisy place to belong, Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!! 1 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 2 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; 3 All mimsy were the borogoves, 4 And the mome raths outgrabe. 5 "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! 6 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! 7 Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun 8 The frumious Bandersnatch!" 9 He took his vorpal sword in hand: 10 Long time the manxome foe he sought -- 11 So rested he by the Tumtum tree. 12 And stood awhile in thought. 13 And as in uffish thought he stood, 14 The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, 15 Came wiffling through the tulgey wood, 16 And burbled as it came! 17 One, two! One, two! And through and through 18 The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! 19 He left it dead, and with its head 20 He went galumphing back. 21 "And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? 22 Come to my arms, my beamish boy! 23 O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" 24 He chortled in his joy. 25 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves 26 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; 27 All mimsy were the borogoves, 28 And the mome raths outgrabe.
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I love rhyming poetry, especially nonsense poetryCouldn't agree more, dode - though the first poem that I found came to mind after Jabberwocky wasn't quite so meaningless: anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did. Women and men (both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn't they reaped their same sun moon stars rain children guessed (but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer) that noone loved him more by more when by now and tree by leaf she laughed his joy she cried his grief bird by snow and stir by still anyone's any was all to her someones married their everyones laughed their cryings and did their dance (sleep wake hope and then) they said their nevers they slept their dream stars rain sun moon (and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up so floating many bells down) one day anyone died i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face) busy folk buried them side by side little by little and was by was all by all and deep by deep and more by more they dream their sleep noone and anyone earth by april wish by spirit and if by yes. Women and men (both dong and ding) summer autumn winter spring reaped their sowing and went their came sun moon stars rain I still have a very soft spot for e.e.cummings, but when I first read his work it was more like meeting the perfect literary life-partner or finding God or something. "Turned on", indeed.
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WOW, never met HIM before. WOW
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On the Ning Nang Nong
On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! And the Monkeys all say Boo! There's a Nong Nang Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo. On the Nong Ning Nang All the mice go Clang! And you just can't catch 'em when they do! So it's Ning Nang Nong! Cows go Bong! Nong Nang Ning! Trees go Ping! Nong Ning Nang! The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong, Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!! I can't read this, Dody--I hear it as a song! Is it one, do you know?
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Given it's attributed to Spike Milligan, it probably *is a song!
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try reading it out loud as fast as you can speak the words until 'you just can't catch them...' then read it dead slowly. It kind of trips up on itself as a poem, like all the words are racing to try and be in the last line.
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try reading it out loud as fast as you can speak the words
I found it came out very sing-song (or rather Ning Nong), reminding me - not so surprisingly - of the Goons' "Ying-Tong Song". Can anyone find an audio version of this on the Web?
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