ENJOY, HORSEFUCKERS! :D  
The Chaos (1922) by Gerard Nolst Trenité
 
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 dress you’ll tear;  
Queer, fair seer, 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: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,
 
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via  
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;  
Woven, oven, how and low,  
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
 
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:  
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,  
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,  
Missiles, similes, reviles.
 
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,  
Same, examining, but mining,  
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,  
Solar, mica, war and far.
 
From “desire”: desirable-admirable from “admire”,  
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,  
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,  
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
 
One, anemone, Balmoral,  
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.  
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,  
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
 
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,  
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.  
This phonetic labyrinth  
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
 
Have you ever yet endeavoured  
To pronounce revered and severed,  
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,  
Peter, petrol and patrol?
 
Billet does not end like ballet;  
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.  
Blood and flood are not like food,  
Nor is mould like should and would.
 
Banquet is not nearly parquet,  
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.  
Discount, viscount, load and broad,  
Toward, to forward, to reward,
 
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?  
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.  
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,  
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
 
Is your r correct in higher?  
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.  
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,  
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
 
Say abscission with precision,  
Now: position and transition;  
Would it tally with my rhyme  
If I mentioned paradigm?
 
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,  
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?  
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,  
Rabies, but lullabies.
 
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,  
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,  
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,  
In a linen envelope.
 
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!  
Affidavit, David, davit.  
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik  
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
 
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,  
Rachel, loch, 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, but police and lice,
 
Camel, constable, unstable,  
Principle, disciple, label.  
Petal, penal, and canal,  
Wait, surmise, plait, 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, but Pall Mall.
 
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,  
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,  
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,  
Senator, spectator, mayor,
 
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour  
Has the a of drachm and hammer.  
Pussy, hussy and possess,  
Desert, but desert, address.
 
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants  
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.  
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,  
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
 
“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker”,  
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor”,  
Making, it is sad but true,  
In bravado, much ado.
 
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,  
Neither does devour with clangour.  
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,  
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
 
Arsenic, specific, scenic,  
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.  
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,  
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
 
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,  
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.  
Mind! Meandering but mean,  
Valentine and magazine.
 
And I bet you, dear, a penny,  
You say mani-(fold) like many,  
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,  
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
 
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring  
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?  
Prison, bison, treasure trove,  
Treason, hover, cover, cove,
 
Perseverance, severance. Ribald  
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.  
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,  
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
 
Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,  
And distinguish buffet, buffet;  
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,  
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
 
Say in sounds correct and sterling  
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.  
Evil, devil, mezzotint,  
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
 
Now you need not pay attention  
To such sounds as I don’t mention,  
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,  
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
 
Nor are proper names included,  
Though I often heard, as you did,  
Funny rhymes to unicorn,  
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
 
No, my maiden, coy and comely,  
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.  
No. Yet Froude compared with proud  
Is no better than McLeod.
 
But mind trivial and vial,  
Tripod, menial, denial,  
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,  
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
 
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely  
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,  
But you’re not supposed to say  
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
 
Had this invalid invalid  
Worthless documents? How pallid,  
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,  
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
 
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,  
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,  
Episodes, antipodes,  
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
 
Please don’t monkey with the geyser,  
Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,  
Rather say in accents pure:  
Nature, stature and mature.
 
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,  
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,  
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,  
Wan, sedan and artisan.
 
The th will surely trouble you  
More than r, ch or w.  
Say then these phonetic gems:  
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
 
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,  
There are more but I forget ‘em-  
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,  
Lighten your anxiety.
 
The archaic word albeit  
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;  
With and forthwith, one has voice,  
One has not, you make your choice.
 
Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;  
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.  
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,  
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
 
Hero, heron, query, very,  
Parry, tarry fury, bury,  
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,  
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
 
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,  
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners  
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,  
Puisne, truism, use, to use?
 
Though the difference seems little,  
We say actual, but victual,  
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,  
Put, nut, granite, and unite.
 
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,  
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.  
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,  
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
 
Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,  
Science, conscience, scientific;  
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,  
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
 
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,  
Next omit, which differs from it  
Bona fide, alibi  
Gyrate, dowry and awry.
 
Sea, idea, guinea, area,  
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.  
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,  
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
 
Compare alien with Italian,  
Dandelion with battalion,  
Rally 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 Ralf.
 
Starry, granary, canary,  
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,  
Face, but preface, then grimace,  
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
 
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,  
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;  
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear  
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
 
Mind the o of off and often  
Which may be pronounced as orphan,  
With the sound of saw and sauce;  
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
 
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?  
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.  
Respite, spite, consent, resent.  
Liable, but Parliament.
 
Seven is right, but so is even,  
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,  
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,  
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
 
A of valour, vapid vapour,  
S of news (compare newspaper),  
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,  
I of antichrist and grist,
 
Differ like diverse and divers,  
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.  
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,  
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
 
Pronunciation-think 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 or tunnel  
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,  
Islington, and Isle of Wight,  
Housewife, verdict and indict.
 
Don’t you think so, reader, rather,  
Saying lather, bather, father?  
Finally, which rhymes with enough,  
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
 
Hiccough has the sound of sup…  
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

@clockworkinsomniac  
It’s usually used against other humans though.  
Some theories of morphological irregularity suggests that irregularities in language serve to strengthen the ingroup-outgroup discrimination. With all the irregularities, and all the cognitive capabilities to detect the irregularities, humans can easily recognize people who talk “differently”.  
I heard that the difference of accents in England are so obsessed over that Bernard Shaw claimed that he could tell on which street of London someone lives by listening to their English. See also U and non-U English and Pygmalion

@Trilby Pony  
And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and you’ll always be wrong no matter what you say!

@The Hittite  
To this day I still try to sit down and decipher what the fuck he was trying to say.

@clockworkinsomniac  
 
Too late.

@Background Pony #18BF
 
Its not a bug, its a feature! Thats our Anti-Changeling defence.
 
When Aliens or whatever invade, we will know immediately.

lol Tengwar

@Background Pony #18BF  
That’s why I’ve played a lot of RPGs with voice acting to help my studies. SW:KotOR was majestic~

@Dirty Bit  
CHIRP CHIRP? CHITTY CHERP TCH TCH?

I thought of the episode of the Powerpuff Girls where Blossom and Buttercup tried speaking Squirrel XD

The worst part about English is that you never know how to pronounce a word until you hear it.

@mathprofbrony  
Of course, there’s also rules that don’t get followed by every word that would be expected to follow it.
 
I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A, as in Neighbor or Weigh.
 
Isn’t that a WEIRD rule for us to SEIZE upon?

@mathprofbrony  
That first statement makes it sound a lot like spanish…

@Background Pony #D92E  
LOL
 
 
@ZeroSpawn47  
OH, OK, THANKS FOR EXPLAINING THAT ^^

@mlpfan  
it’s interspecies. bestiality is if one of the pair is non sapient and the other is.

@mlpfan  
I accepted it since the end of season 1. XD

…
 
I’m starting to accept bestiality…^^

Hey, me and Human Husband have the same small-talk openers!

@DanielTepesKraus
 
that’s how I felt learning english too… my primary language is english…

@Background Pony #E251  
Then again, the fowl course may be either, if you’re into poultry.

@Background Pony #DF3F  
Doublepost… but yes we british are at fault. We’re to blame for everything wrong with english.
 
Why?  
Because Cockney Rhyming Slang exists. That’s a crime we’ll never escape.

@Background Pony #DF3F  
And interesting example of this is, IIRC, the reason why english has two different words for ‘cow’ and ‘beef’ when most languages use the same word for both the animal and the meat (in english, ‘Chicken’ or ‘Turkey’ would be an example of this).
 
And this pretty much comes down to the normans invading and taking charge - followed by them having french-named ‘boeuf’ to eat at mealtimes. Meanwhile us dirty english peasantry were off herding the germanicly-named ‘cows’ for their norman overlords. Somewhere along the line we took the word used by the people eating well and the word used by the farmers herding and decided ‘meh, we’ll just use both.’
 
Fact: I may have been drunk when i heard this explained to me. But I don’t think i messed it up too much.

“If you think about it, our bodies are always full of vomit”. XD

@mathprofbrony  
Au contraire. English wasn’t made by choosing, but by the force of a dozen different groups which came to dominate the British isles at different points, trying very hard to force their own language upon the locals but the locals being reluctant to fully commit to the new language. It’s not a matter of liking words, it’s literally a case of some git trying to change the soup’s recipe midway and failing horribly. It’s, after all, very easy to see that the evolution of the English language has ultimately been more affected by the invasions than by the contacts with invadees.
 
The brits aren’t to blame for the horrible mess that is English, is tbe point.

Her text was written in Tengwar (Sindarin version), the alphabet of Tolkien’s Elves. There’s a tengwar tag, I believe