Almost 100 years ago a Dutch poet wrote a poem which shone a spotlight on all the weird idiosyncrasies of the English language.
The poem was aptly titled The Chaos – and even people raised speaking English have problems pronouncing all the words, let alone spelling them. The entire poem highlights 800 bizarre irregularities. Here are a few lines published by The Independent recently:
Dearest Creature in creation
Study English pronunciation
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse corps horse and worse
That last line will give you the idea. Here are another couple of verses:
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.
This one doozie of a line says it all: Eye I ay aye whey and key
And then it ends like this:
Finally which rhymes with enough
Though through plough or dough or cough?
Haven’t been tortured enough? The poem is by Gerard Nolste Trenité and you can read the full version here.
