Forwarded message: >From vanhoose Sat Oct 16 19:05:26 1993 Date: Sat, 16 Oct 93 19:05:24 -0400 From: Todd E. Van Hoosear <vanhoose> To: todd Subject: English is Tough StuffDate: Wed, 21 Jul 93 10:07:11 -0400 From: Todd E. Van Hoosear <todd> To: &friends, &comm, &comm-grad, &comm-prof Subject: English is Tough Stuff
Aaah, the wonders of the English language...
Leo Sell picked this first letter up off the copyediting-l@cornell.edu mailing list. Bill Brown sent me the second letter...
- Todd
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Why is English the lingua franca?
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.
ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF ======================
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. 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, 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!!!
-- Author Unknown
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Received: by TAOMLR2@MSU; Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:29:23 Received: from MSU by MSU.BITNET (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) with BSMTP id 3456; Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:29:15 EDT Received: from [35.8.1.214] by msu.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with TCP; Tue, 20 Jul 93 11:29:13 EDT Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 11:30:35 -0600 To: mrln2@ibm.cl.msu.edu (Marilyn.Everingham), LSELL@MSU.EDU, 13501TEV@MSU.EDU From: Mark_Winter <M.Winter@SHEFFIELD.AC.UK> (by way of brownw@ibm.cl.msu.edu) Subject: Re: Off-topic language (human, not computer) ref.
> >>(why can't you people spell properly?) > >You don't, by any chance, also put that extra syllable in "aluminum", do you >Mark? *grin* > <->
Absolutely, as required by IUPAC. Also as required by IUPAC, caesium is caesium but not cesium. Of course, in this country we ignore IUPAC when they insist that sulphur should be sulfur (sulfur is known as the f-word in Chemistry circles here) on the grounds that IUPAC does not have jurisdiction on language! Anyway, if sulfur, then fosfate.
For your amusement, I append this which our unix fortune cookie gadget spat out.
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
Dr Mark J Winter: Dept of Chemistry, The University, Sheffield S3 7HF, England tel: +44 (0)742 824498 fax: +44 (0)742 738673 e-m: M.Winter@sheffield.ac.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - The Dual Lives of Todd E. Van Hoosear - ``''' (._.) Graduate Assistant, | Graduate Student, (_) Hypermedia and Instructional | Department of Communication, `---' Computing Support Services, | Michigan State University MSU Computer Laboratory | East Lansing, MI 48824
Internet ID: 13501tev@msu.edu NeXT Mail: todd@cl-next4.cl.msu.edu BITnet ID: 13501tev@msu.bitnet MUD Mail: like I have time anymore! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~PLEASE DON'T SUE ME STATEMENT!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a measly Graduate Student, of course my views do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan State University or the Computer Laboratory. ~~~~~~~~~BLATENT POLITICAL STATEMENT (REQ'D OF SIGNATURE FILES?)~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Democrats are also the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it." (from "Parliament of Whores" - P.J. O'Rourke, 1991) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~