Accent Challenge the Third: Extreme English

[DoingMyBest]

So, after doing and seeing the accent challenge thread (here) and the seeing the second one (here) which I am still yet to do, I stumbled across a poem, showing us why English is one of the hardest languages to learn and, worse, pronounce when certain combinations are together. (And thanks go to kittenlyss for whom I decided to record this and punishlola for also wanting to hear it :P )

First of all, here is my recording of it - https://soundcloud.com/doingmybest/e...cent-challenge

I'll be honest, my speech impediments were both at a high, I was tired tot he point of disfocus and I really shouldn't have recorded it when I did.

Anyway, there's that and here's the poem to follow along to:

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 plague 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, 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.
Foeffer 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,
Psalmm 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!

Link to where I found it - unfortunately, no credit given http://www.tickld.com/x/90-of-people...his-whole-poem

EDIT: Courtesy of Master. here is a link to the origins: http://staff.science.uva.nl/~polko/LEUK/chaos.pdf

[Mumbles91]

I saw this on facebook a few weeks back and actually considered posting it! I recorded this for my Domme, whilst stood on one leg.. for each mistake I had to pinch and edge. when I played it back I sounded like an illiterate idiot. But you mastered it! you make it sound easy

[DoingMyBest]

In fairness, I didn't do it on one leg and have to pinch/edge for mistakes And I'm an actor, lol. As the girls know, I wasn't particularly happy with the end result, but I thought it unfair to re-record. (But thank you *blush*)

Feel free to post up either the version for your Domme (with permission, of course!) or a standard version

[Mumbles91]

Haha, no I think I will pass on posting. I pronounced a few words wrong, like chalet and bosom. I was just simply admiring your reading I will look forward to seeing other posts here though, I found it challenging.

[Teeks]

Oh my God this looks like so much fun!!!! @DoingmyBest, I'm really glad I stumbled upon this, cause this is great!

And Mumbles91 is right, you totally aced the challenge, going to be tough doing better than you now!

Especially for a little French girl, muhaha! Buuuuuut this is fun and going to help my English pronunciation, I'm so doing this today! I'll post my recording once I've done it, but for now better wait till everybody's awake

[Master.]

I saw this on reddit a few weeks ago, I believe a Finnish man wrote it originally, I shall try to find a source.

Edit: I found a source here stating that it was written by a Hollander during the war and published in a Dutch print newspaper in London.

[Saddi]

This is Mumbles version of this which she somehow thought she could avoid sharing.
This is not the version I used for pinching and edging, that was on the phone to me as she was far too lenient on herself in this as you can hear.

https://soundcloud.com/mumbles91/sou...rday-afternoon

[SweetTeen]

I would so fail at this but uh i dunno :P

[DoingMyBest]

Originally Posted by Teeks

Oh my God this looks like so much fun!!!! @DoingmyBest, I'm really glad I stumbled upon this, cause this is great!

And Mumbles91 is right, you totally aced the challenge, going to be tough doing better than you now!

Especially for a little French girl, muhaha! Buuuuuut this is fun and going to help my English pronunciation, I'm so doing this today! I'll post my recording once I've done it, but for now better wait till everybody's awake

Awh, thanks - you're both silly and sweet, but thank you so much And I can;t wait to hear the little French girl's rendition! But don't wake people up for it

Originally Posted by Master.

I saw this on reddit a few weeks ago, I believe a Finnish man wrote it originally, I shall try to find a source.

Edit: I found a source here stating that it was written by a Hollander during the war and published in a Dutch print newspaper in London.

Thank you SO much, Master.. Really appreciate that and have edited the original post to include it.

Originally Posted by Saddi

This is Mumbles version of this which she somehow thought she could avoid sharing.
This is not the version I used for pinching and edging, that was on the phone to me as she was far too lenient on herself in this as you can hear.

https://soundcloud.com/mumbles91/sou...rday-afternoon

Thank you, Saddi Can't wait until housemate stops watching tele in here so I can listen. Keen to hear yours too, if you'd be so kind, please?


@SweetTeen - go on, ye know ye wanna!

[owneed]

Originally Posted by Saddi

This is Mumbles version of this which she somehow thought she could avoid sharing.
This is not the version I used for pinching and edging, that was on the phone to me as she was far too lenient on herself in this as you can hear.

https://soundcloud.com/mumbles91/sou...rday-afternoon

wow, mumbles, you sound so sexy loved it,..

and I want to do this, but I don't even know most of these words

[DoingMyBest]

owneed: that's the beauty of it! The whole point of the poem is to show how ridiculous the language is I'm ridiculous as well because I know all of it and gave the correct pronunciation for each word, lol. But it's nice to here a non-native's interpretation of our silliness. Try anyway, pleeeeeease!

Mumbles: Very nicely done Terpsichore tripped you quite a lot And you edge damnably fast

[SweetTeen]

"(Mind the latter, how it's written.)" Do i have to read that out? I dont wanna be a fool and do it wrong ups

[DoingMyBest]

Everything in that "paragraph" is part of it, so yeps I spent quite a long time tying it all out from that picture, lol :P And they'll be plenty of mess ups - it's part of the fun.

I am starting to wonder if we should have a system whereby we record and upload, compare to mine (not saying it's perfect, but the words are all pronounced correctly, lol) and set a little challenge to it?

[Saddi]

Originally Posted by DoingMyBest

I am starting to wonder if we should have a system whereby we record and upload, compare to mine (not saying it's perfect, but the words are all pronounced correctly, lol) and set a little challenge to it?

Like this plan!

Such as?

[DoingMyBest]

My immedate thought is spanks, but not everyone likes/dislikes that. Maybe edges? It seems fairly universal, but it seems unfair to those that aren't native English speakers.

Note: points are deducted/awarded for pronunciation, not tongue-flapping.

Saddi, what d you say to it being a case by case basis? And, would you be so kind as to help out? (And it'd still be lovely if you did it for me too, pwease )