The Adventure of English Pronounciation

Was sent this today from Kirst, very good for those times you think foreign languages are so trying when coming to grips with pronounciation!

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.

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!!!