Scribd
Upload
16 views

Phonetic Labyrinth

Uploaded by

Strawberry Cub
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
16 views

Phonetic Labyrinth

Uploaded by

Strawberry Cub
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Phonetic Labyrinth

Dearest creature in creation , Tortoise , turquoise , chamois-leather ;


Studying English pronunciation. Reading , reading , heathen , heather .
I will teach you in my verse.
This phonetic labyrinth
Sounds like corpse , corps , horse ,
Gives moss , gross , brook , brooch , ninth and
and worse —
plinth .
It will keep you, Susy , busy ,
Billet does not end like ballet ,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Bouquet , wallet , mallet , chalet .
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear —
Blood and flood are not like food ,
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer :
Nor is mould like would and should .
Pray console your loving poet,
Banquet is not nearly parquet ,
Make my coat look new , dear, sew it!
Which is said to rhyme with “darky.”
Just compare heart , beard , and heard , Viscous , viscount , load and broad ;
Dies and diet , lord and word , Toward , to forward , to reward .
Sword and sward , retain and Britain
And your pronunciation’s O.K.,
(Mind the latter, how it’s written).
When you say correctly croquet ;
Made has not the sound of bade ;
Rounded , wounded ; grieve and sieve ;
Say – said , pay – paid , laid , but plaid .
Friend and fiend ; alive and live ;
Now I surely will not plague you
Liberty , library , heave and heaven ;
With such words as vague and ague .
Rachel , ache , moustache ; eleven.
But be careful how you speak :
We say hallowed , but allowed ;
Say break and steak , but bleak and streak .
People , leopard ; towed but vowed .
Previous , precious , fuchsia , via ;
Mark the differences, moreover ,
Pipe , snipe , recipe and choir ;
Twixt mover , plover , Dover ;
Cloven , oven ; how and low ;
Leeches , breeches ; wise , precise ;
Script , receipt ; shoe , poem , toe .
Chalice , but police and lice ;
Hear me say, devoid of trickery :
Camel, constable , unstable ;
Daughter , laughter and Terpsichore ;
Principle , disciple ; label;
Typhoid , measles , topsails , aisles ;
Petal , penal and canal ;
Exiles , similes , reviles ;
Wait , surmise , plait , promise , pal.
Wholly , holly , signal , signing ;
Suit , suite , ruin ; circuit , conduit
Thames , examining , combining .
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it.”
Scholar , vicar and cigar ; But it’s very hard to tell,
Solar , mica , war and far . Why it’s pall , mall , but Pall Mall .
From desire to desirable , admirable from
Muscle , muscular ; gaol ; iron ;
admire .
Timber , climber ; bullion , lion ;
Lumber , plumber ; bier but brier ;
Worm and storm ; chaise , chaos , chair ;
Chatham , brougham ; renown but known ,
Senator , spectator , mayor .
From knowledge ; done , but gone and tone ;
Ivy , privy ; famous ; clamour
One , anemone ; Balmoral;
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
Kitchen , lichen ; laundry , laurel ;
Gertrude , German ; wind and mind . Pussy , hussy and possess;
Scene , Melpomene , mankind; desert , but dessert , address.
Golf , wolf ; countenance ; lieutenants
Phonetic Labyrinth
Hoist , in lieu of flags, left pennants . Face but preface , but efface ;
River , rival ; tomb , bomb , comb ; Phlegm , phlegmatic ; ass , glass , bass ;
Doll and roll and some and home . Large , but target ; gin , give , verging ;
Stranger does not rhyme with anger , Ought , out , joust and scour , scourging .
Neither does devour with clangour . Ear , earn ; and wear and tear
Soul but foul , and gaunt , but aunt ; Do not rhyme with “here ” and “there ” but
Font , front , wont , want , grand and grant . “ere .”

Shoes , goes , does . Now first say finger , Seven is right, but so is even ,
And then singer , ginger , linger . Hyphen , roughen , nephew , Stephen ;
Real , zeal ; mauve , gauze and gauge ; Monkey , donkey , clerk and jerk ;
Marriage , foliage , mirage and age . Asp , grasp , wasp ; and cork and work .
Query does not rhyme with very ,
Pronunciation — think of Psyche —
Nor does fury sound like bury .
Is a paling, stout and spiky,
Dost , lost , post and doth , cloth , loth ;
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Job , job ; blossom , bosom , oath .
Writing “groats” and saying “grits.”
Though the difference seems little,
It’s a dark abyss, or tunnel ,
We say actual but victual .
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale ;
Seat , sweat ; chaste , caste ; Leigh , eight , heig Islington and Isle of Wight;
ht ; Housewife, verdict and indict .
Put , nut ; granite but unite .
Don’t you think so, reader, rather
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer .
Saying lather , bather , father ?
Feoffer does, and zephyr , heifer .
Finally, which rhymes with “enough ” —
Dull , bull ; Geoffrey , George ; ate , late ;
Though , through , plough , cough , hough ,
Hint , pint ; senate , but sedate ;
Or tough ?
Scenic, Arabic, pacific;
Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”
Science , conscience , scientific ;
My advice is — give it up!!!
Tour , but our , and succour , four ;
Core provides a rhyme for door.
Gas , alas and Arkansas .
Sea , idea , guinea , area .
Psalm , 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’s not safe.
We say calves , valves , half , but Ralf .
Heron, granary , canary ;
Crevice and device and eyrie;

You might also like