90% of People Can't Pronounce This Whole Poem. You Have to Try It

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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 labor 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. 
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!!!

Fun with Words

Start with a four letter word, such as "lamp."  Change just one letter in the same order, and see how far you can go!  You cannot add letters or use foreign languages.  This is fun to do alone or with one or more people.  Try it as a family.  Fun!  As you can see, it's hard to stop! 

Example:

lamp, damp, camp, came, case, cast, last, fast, fest, west, nest, best, bust, dust, must, mast, mass, mess, mews, news, sews, sets, bets, lets, pets, vets, wets, wits, with, wish, fish, dish ... 

This would be a great game for road trips.  It can be played alone as well.  If you have to wait at the doctor's office or in the carpool line, you could write out your own list.

Smile! Punctuation and Spelling Really DO Matter!

A nearsighted minister glanced at the note that Mrs. Jones had sent to him by an usher.

The note read: Bill Jones having gone to sea, his wife desires the prayers of the congregation for his safety.

Failing to observe the punctuation, he startled his audience by announcing: Bill Jones, having gone to see his wife, desires the prayers of the congregation for his safety.
  -- Cited on ArcaMax.com