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The Chaos: Gerard Nolst Trenité (1922)

1) The poem teaches about pronouncing tricky English words through rhyming verses. 2) It lists many pairs of words that are commonly mispronounced such as corps/corpse and sward/sword. 3) The poet asks the reader, Susie, to carefully study the rhymes and pronunciations to improve her English.

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139 views2 pages

The Chaos: Gerard Nolst Trenité (1922)

1) The poem teaches about pronouncing tricky English words through rhyming verses. 2) It lists many pairs of words that are commonly mispronounced such as corps/corpse and sward/sword. 3) The poet asks the reader, Susie, to carefully study the rhymes and pronunciations to improve her English.

Uploaded by

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

Gerard Nolst Trenité (1922)


Dearest creature in creation Now I surely will not plague you
Studying English pronunciation, With such words as vague and ague,
I will teach you in my verse But be careful how you speak,
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and Say: gush, bush, steak, streak,
worse. break, bleak ,
I will keep you, Susy, busy, Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Make your head with heat grow dizzy; Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear; Woven, oven, how and low,
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer. Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Pray, console your loving poet, Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Just compare heart, hear and heard, Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Dies and diet, lord and word. Missiles, similes, reviles.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
(Mind the latter how it’s written). Same, examining, but mining,
Made has not the sound of bade, Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Say–said, pay–paid, laid but plaid. Solar, mica, war and far.

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