English Pronunciation
Exactly my point. On why English is actually the hardest language of all.
Found this on Vogue Forums and it was too good not to post on Tumblr.
If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
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.
Fe0ffer 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 up!!!English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité
(via joceline)
Source: creamlacedresses
Sure. Sure. He’s okay. Aren’t you, Cat? Poor old Cat. Poor slob. Poor slob without a name. I don’t have the right to give him one. We don’t belong to each other. We just took up one day. I don’t want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I’m not sure where that is, but I know what it’s like. It’s like Tiffany’s.
My wife’s ben dead two years, Will. And when I think about her, those are the things I think about most. Little idiosyncrasies that only I knew about. Those made her my wife. And she had the goods on me too. Little things I do out of habit. People call these things imperfections Will. It’s just who we are. And we get to chose who we’re going to let into out weird little worlds. You’re not perfect. And let me save you the suspense, this girl you met isn’t either. The question is, whether or not you’re perfect for each other. You can know everything in the world, but the only way you’re findin’ that one out is by giving it a shot.
The Canticle of Mary
I was transported back to the days when I joined the Legion of Mary, and how peaceful I felt every time I said the Magnificat. And truly, it’s the perfect day to acknowledge the kindness Mother Mary has always given me, throughout the hard days of my life. I could never forget how I always turned to her, especially back in junior high, in the little chapel just behind the school, and whatever I’ve asked through her have been granted. Truly blessed :)
“My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.He looks on his servant in her lowliness; henceforth all ages will call me blessed.The Almighty works marvels for me. Holy his name!His mercy is from age to age, on those who fear him.He puts forth his arm in strength and scatters the proud-hearted.He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly.He fills the starving with good things, sends the rich away empty.He protects Israel, his servant, remembering his mercy,the mercy promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his sons for ever.”
I’ll Follow You Into The Dark (Cover) - Death Cab For Cutie
Happy birthday dear! :)
2011 - A Year in Review
2011 has been a very blessed year, I couldn’t have been more grateful. The first semester was spent while Edwin went for exchange in US! Initially, it felt soooo longgggg. But the semester soon proved to be the busiest semester ever, thanks to Corp Rep, and soon enough he’s backkk!!
The first semester was filled with the exam preparation madness, camping in the library, counting down to lunch and dinner every single day, my Russian Earl Grey Tea by my side, squeezing out lemon with salt for people around me, and the craving for Thai food which were yet to be satisfied even after exam.
I watched Forrest Gump for the first time. Enough said. It’s my no.1 favorite movie now.
My 2 internships which gave me a lot of new experiences. In GE, I got to meet many awesome people and actually got a chance to interact with other people in other departments due to the nature of my job. In Deloitte where I spent the best days with the best table companion ever! And with the job which I’m trying to appreciate every time, no matter how tedious it may be. Oh and lesson learnt: I’d rather do work then just sitting doing nothing, waiting for the clock to strike 5.
Annnd of course, it’s the most Voix-ed year ever, with the competition, 2 showcases and 1 concert, and various other gigs not to mention the awesomest caroling sessions. Truly grateful to be a part of this amazing group of people and having fun creating wonderful sounds together.
Oh and lastly. Italian class!! My one motivation last semester, which makes me enjoy learning it, so so much! La mia professoressa e molto divertente, carina, lei e la migliore! Che cosa sei? J
Oh and 2011’s resolution of redirecting my focus is kinda fulfilled. Things to improve next year: read more novels, news too, and get better organized in everything!
Cheers!
matters/clutters
here i am,
transported yet again to the past.
rummaging the past through the yellowed files, now smell like old papers, been kept too long.
i still laughed when i saw my essays from school back then
or old photographs and whimsical sketches, of christmas cards.
but this time i let go, have chosen which ones to keep, has one changed if what used to matter now cease to do so?
clutter, they seem now. triggered by impracticality? maybe.
but why bother now, isn’t what truly matters is what’s in the heart?
memories may fade away, but am I not made up of my past,which builds every part of myself into what I am today, so they never truly fade away?
now the empty folders, waiting to be filled up with more adventures in the years ahead.
no regret. big progress this time around.
Source: adrowningwoman
Time is tricky. You have whole months, even years, when nothing changes a speck, when you don’t go anywhere or do anything or think one new thought. And then you can get hit with a day or an hour, or half a second, when so much happens it’s almost like you are born all over again into some brand-new person you for damn sure never expected to meet.
If you’re feeling frightened about what comes next, don’t be. Embrace the uncertainty. Allow it to lead you places. Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path towards happiness, don’t waste time with regret. Spin wildly into your next action. Enjoy the present, each moment, as it comes; because you’ll never get another one quite like it. And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over. Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart… where your hope lives. You’ll find your way again.
