Hola Snarksters! Yep, ’tis me, the almost-vanished-but-not-quite-gone-as-I-am-fighting-to-make-it-back-and-so-I-will-and-I-shall-and-I-MUST-DAMMIT Catty Yummy Mummy, or Miz BoheMia, whatever and blah, blah, blah and yeah, as you can see, oh so eloquent am I! SO… for all you faboo Snarksters who are as eloquent as I am, read up, flex those mouth muscles and get ready for an adventure in English pronunciation, stolen fair and square from here!
Ready?
Set?
GO!
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, & 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!!!
Oooh! Faboo indeed! Now do it again! Only this time, open up them bocas and say it loud and PROUD! And if anyone questions you, tell them if Miz BoheMia does it, it’s all cool… yeah, a lesson in self confidence is next but for now, get back to enunciating and pronunciating bitches!
As for me, you know the drill!
BoheMia OUT!
11 Comments so far
Leave a comment
Central Snark 
your eyes don’t deceive you, most DEAR and WONDERFUL and FABOOOOOOO Miz B, for — since i was in the process of putting up a very lame post (to be posted tomorrow… and woohoo that i don’t have to do another one!!) i saw this AMAZING and entertaining offering, and felt i should add in that link to you. back to you. even as we all pray and hope and wish for YOU to get BACK TO US!!
what a treat to see your fine/clever words here today. thank you thank you thank you… and thank you for showing us all how totally screwed up the English language pronunciations are. (bet Lil’ BoheMia and Lil’ Mischief can’t wait to get back to the states so they can put this stuff to good use!) BESOS AMIGA! (snuppy) xoxoxox
Comment by One Hot Puppy Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 9:30amMy favorite short “how to confuse them unwashed furriners” bit of English.
start with:
car wash
now swap the lead consonants, so you get
war cash
😛
Comment by oceallaigh Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 9:31amOoh now this is quite the lovely suprise! I’ll have to go for another run through FO SHO (that should be added into the Bohemian Update of the poem).
I wonder now, dependent upon where people were raised how they pronounce “aunt” – like the little critters not welcome at picnics or “Ont” as one faction of my nieces/nephews refer to me which I must admit sounds so much better.
CattYummy, you came out swinging with a great little post. Nice to see you in The Snark! XOX
Comment by Lampsha Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 11:10amMakes perfect sense to me.
Comment by Diesel Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 12:32pmAnd the problem is????
Comment by littlebluepill Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 1:17pmMakes you wonder how English became the second language for most of the rest of the world…..OK! I know how the British and all that….anyway, how about applause, for one whose second language is Englis, while I take bough/bow….come along and take your bow MizBohemia, Minka and, and, you know who you are.
Thank you Yummy Mummy that was fun 🙂
Comment by Mo'a whose second language is English Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 3:06pmSnuppylicious Neva de mi corazón- Ha, ha, haaa! You are too, too sweet and though you flatter me too much (for my words were not witty, just filler I am afraid, and the clever poem which is SO not my doing must get all the credit in this here post) I do love, LOVE this witty poem and had to post it and truly hope it did not get in the way of any of your always-oh-so-faboo-and-dios-mio-how-entertaining posts!
I saw it at the site I linked to (and you are TOO sweet with the link! Gracias! 😉 ) and automatically thought of the Snark… well, after Loverboy begged me to “shut up for the love of GOD! SHUT UP!” after having had to put up with lord knows how many readings of the thing for yes, I am just the kind of geek who will sit there reading this out loud several times, I figured it was high time to take it elsewhere!
And I actually was tempted to show it to Lil’ BoheMia but opted against it… I don’t want to scare the poor kid and make her wonder what she is getting into with this move-to-be-that-isn’t-just-yet-and-dammit-when-will-it-be-WHEN-I-ask you know?
I hope you have a faboo day my dearest amiga and muchos boho besos are flying your way always! FO SHO!
OC- Oooh! Thou art witty and that trick quite pretty das FO SHO! This bohemian applauds you!
Lampsha- Thank you my dear friend… and it is good to be back in the Snark although I do admit to not knowing when I shall be able to pop in again seeing that I barely pop into my own place anymore! *sigh*
And I am guilty of pronouncing it “Ont”… the first time I ever heard of the “ant” pronounciation was when an American friend I had here in Spain said the word and had me totally confused as to what the hell she was talking about and why on earth she was so damn fond of ants! Dios mio!
Oooh! Another run? My kinda gal FO SHO! Neshikot to you my dear and glad you liked!
Diesel- It does? Das it! This bohemian likes you… we are easy that way! ^*sigh*
LBP- There’s a problem? WHERE? Huh?
LovaMóa- Glad you liked! Although I quite don’t know if English was my second language as I was raised with Farsi, Spanish and English all at once and all as my first and the rest got added on to the mix later… what does that make English to me then?
Confusing?
Always! 🙂
Comment by Miz BoheMia Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 4:45pmyou know, dear CYM, i read through that poem a couple of times and it made my head hurt. like a squirt in the eye of something to clean with, that’s cleansing to surfaces — i mean, that’s the purpose of such things, right? oh why did you have to write this? what gave you the idea? (never mind, this is just Neva, wondering out loud, but not in a crowd.)
okay, so maybe i can’t do it as well as the poem, but that was still fun for this one! xox
Comment by snuppy Thursday, 25 January 2007 @ 6:10pmLoved that.
Comment by weirsdo Friday, 26 January 2007 @ 1:32amWOW! That must have taken you hours to perfect… all that english spillage… excellent my friend Miz B ! Loved it.
Comment by tsduff Friday, 26 January 2007 @ 1:41amNevalicious Snuppy de mi corazón- Oooh! That was faboo, FABOO I tell you! I went to bed thinking such thoughts… but alas they escape me now and I am not even bold enough to attempt such a venture… plus, it is 7:30 am and the kids are up and famished! *sigh* Kitchen duties for their mother I’m afraid!
I thought it was faboo and I applaud your creation, APPLAUD I SAY!
Weirsdo- ‘Tis good, is it not?
Tsduff- Glad you did although, alas, I was not the one who wrote it, merely the one who STOLE it! *sigh*
Comment by Miz BoheMia Friday, 26 January 2007 @ 2:37am