“Dearest creature in creation,Study English pronunciation.I will teach you in my verseSounds 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 youWith 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 OKWhen you correctly say croquet,Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,Friend and fiend, alive and live.Ivy, privy, famous; clamourAnd 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 tearDo 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!!!”
―
Gerard Nolst Trenité,
Drop your Foreign Accent
“There are a million Paths in this world, Lindon, but any sage will tell you they can all be reduced to one. Improve yourself.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“It will never be true. Things have never been okay with us. Maybe if I'd paid attention, I would have seen that on our first few dates. Maybe I would have noticed his possessiveness; maybe I would have seen the way he wrapped around me, made me his entire world, his obsession. Maybe I would have felt the wight he placed on my shoulders, one tiny stone at a time.” ― Amanda Grace, But I Love Him
“According to Thomas, the city [of Bath] had once been a veritable hotbed of manifestations, with every sorcerer, bunyip, golem, goblin, pict, pixie, demon, thylacine, gorgon, moron, cult, scum, mummy, rummy, groke, sphinx, minx, muse, flagellant, diva, reaver, weaver, reaper, scabbarder, scabmettler, dwarf, midget, little person, leprechaun, marshwiggle, totem, soothsayer, truthsayer, hatter, hattifattener, imp, panwere, mothman, shaman, flukeman, warlock, morlock, poltergeist, zeitgeist, elemental, banshee, manshee, lycanthrope, lichenthrope, sprite, wight, aufwader, harpy, silkie, kelpie, klepto, specter, mutant, cyborg, balrog, troll, ogre, cat in shoes, dog in a hat, psychic and psychotic seemingly having decided that this was the hot spot to visit.” ― Daniel O'Malley, The Rook
“Only storms turn fish into dragons,” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“They folded clothes, dusted shelves, polished swords; except for the periodic murder attempts, they were perfect hosts.” ― Will Wight, House of Blades
“When a traveler cannot find a path, sometimes he must make his own.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“As he was halfway through the portal, pushing forward as though trying to escape a rushing river, he screamed, “Remember, Lindon! Remember to visit a barber! A barber, Lindon! Your hair lacks volume and defin—” ― Will Wight, Wintersteel
“Live your life, Sahara. Live it as big and with as much color as you can stand to bear. Don't let anyone or anything - the family, Silence, the wight of your ability, even my need to keep you close - confine you again.” ― Nalini Singh, Heart of Obsidian
“Robin Hood. To a Friend.No! those days are gone away,And their hours are old and gray,And their minutes buried allUnder the down-trodden pallOfthe leaves of many years:Many times have winter's shears,Frozen North, and chilling East,Sounded tempests to the feastOf the forest's whispering fleeces,Since men knew nor rent nor leases. No, the bugle sounds no more,And the twanging bow no more;Silent is the ivory shrillPast the heath and up the hill;There is no mid-forest laugh,Where lone Echo gives the halfTo some wight, amaz'd to hearJesting, deep in forest drear. On the fairest time of JuneYou may go, with sun or moon,Or the seven stars to light you,Or the polar ray to right you;But you never may beholdLittle John, or Robin bold;Never one, of all the clan,Thrumming on an empty canSome old hunting ditty, whileHe doth his green way beguileTo fair hostess Merriment,Down beside the pasture Trent;For he left the merry tale,Messenger for spicy ale. Gone, the merry morris din;Gone, the song of Gamelyn;Gone, the tough-belted outlawIdling in the "grene shawe";All are gone away and past!And if Robin should be castSudden from his turfed grave,And if Marian should haveOnce again her forest days,She would weep, and he would craze:He would swear, for all his oaks,Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,Have rotted on the briny seas;She would weep that her wild beesSang not to her---strange! that honeyCan't be got without hard money! So it is; yet let us singHonour to the old bow-string!Honour to the bugle-horn!Honour to the woods unshorn!Honour to the Lincoln green!Honour to the archer keen!Honour to tight little John,And the horse he rode upon!Honour to bold Robin Hood,Sleeping in the underwood!Honour to maid Marian,And to all the Sherwood clan!Though their days have hurried byLet us two a burden try.” ― John Keats
“She that was ever fair and never proud,Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,She that in wisdom never was so frailTo change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,See suitors following and not look behind,She was a wight, if ever such wight were,--DESDEMONA: To do what?IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.” ― William Shakespeare, Othello
“Fate is not fair, but it is just. Hard work is never in vain…even when it does not achieve what you wished.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the ‘kick’.” ― Jack London, John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs
“...I'm not a pie-construct, am I? What I know about pie could fill a...a little...the tiny scoop you use to eat soup.” “A spoon?” “No, that can't be right. That's ridiculous. Spoon. Get out of here with your nonsense words.” ― Will Wight, Ghostwater
“Some believe that hope is the strongest force in the universe,” Dross said. “Although that is objectively untrue.” ― Will Wight, Ghostwater
“I have so little. To a beggar, even scraps become a feast.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“Eithan looked from his enemy’s weapon to his own. “Longhook, is it? You can call me Tiny Scissors.” ― Will Wight, Skysworn
“I don’t know who that idiot is, running around in that cloak like he thinks he’s an assassin, but where did he get that beautifully crafted doll?’ That’s what people are going to say about you.” ― Will Wight, City of Light
“The son of a cripple might be a cripple, but the son of tigers won’t be a dog.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“There are a million Paths in this world, Lindon, but any sage will tell you they can all be reduced to one. Improve yourself.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“It will never be true. Things have never been okay with us. Maybe if I'd paid attention, I would have seen that on our first few dates. Maybe I would have noticed his possessiveness; maybe I would have seen the way he wrapped around me, made me his entire world, his obsession. Maybe I would have felt the wight he placed on my shoulders, one tiny stone at a time.” ― Amanda Grace, But I Love Him
“According to Thomas, the city [of Bath] had once been a veritable hotbed of manifestations, with every sorcerer, bunyip, golem, goblin, pict, pixie, demon, thylacine, gorgon, moron, cult, scum, mummy, rummy, groke, sphinx, minx, muse, flagellant, diva, reaver, weaver, reaper, scabbarder, scabmettler, dwarf, midget, little person, leprechaun, marshwiggle, totem, soothsayer, truthsayer, hatter, hattifattener, imp, panwere, mothman, shaman, flukeman, warlock, morlock, poltergeist, zeitgeist, elemental, banshee, manshee, lycanthrope, lichenthrope, sprite, wight, aufwader, harpy, silkie, kelpie, klepto, specter, mutant, cyborg, balrog, troll, ogre, cat in shoes, dog in a hat, psychic and psychotic seemingly having decided that this was the hot spot to visit.” ― Daniel O'Malley, The Rook
“Only storms turn fish into dragons,” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“They folded clothes, dusted shelves, polished swords; except for the periodic murder attempts, they were perfect hosts.” ― Will Wight, House of Blades
“When a traveler cannot find a path, sometimes he must make his own.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“As he was halfway through the portal, pushing forward as though trying to escape a rushing river, he screamed, “Remember, Lindon! Remember to visit a barber! A barber, Lindon! Your hair lacks volume and defin—” ― Will Wight, Wintersteel
“Live your life, Sahara. Live it as big and with as much color as you can stand to bear. Don't let anyone or anything - the family, Silence, the wight of your ability, even my need to keep you close - confine you again.” ― Nalini Singh, Heart of Obsidian
“Robin Hood. To a Friend.No! those days are gone away,And their hours are old and gray,And their minutes buried allUnder the down-trodden pallOfthe leaves of many years:Many times have winter's shears,Frozen North, and chilling East,Sounded tempests to the feastOf the forest's whispering fleeces,Since men knew nor rent nor leases. No, the bugle sounds no more,And the twanging bow no more;Silent is the ivory shrillPast the heath and up the hill;There is no mid-forest laugh,Where lone Echo gives the halfTo some wight, amaz'd to hearJesting, deep in forest drear. On the fairest time of JuneYou may go, with sun or moon,Or the seven stars to light you,Or the polar ray to right you;But you never may beholdLittle John, or Robin bold;Never one, of all the clan,Thrumming on an empty canSome old hunting ditty, whileHe doth his green way beguileTo fair hostess Merriment,Down beside the pasture Trent;For he left the merry tale,Messenger for spicy ale. Gone, the merry morris din;Gone, the song of Gamelyn;Gone, the tough-belted outlawIdling in the "grene shawe";All are gone away and past!And if Robin should be castSudden from his turfed grave,And if Marian should haveOnce again her forest days,She would weep, and he would craze:He would swear, for all his oaks,Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes,Have rotted on the briny seas;She would weep that her wild beesSang not to her---strange! that honeyCan't be got without hard money! So it is; yet let us singHonour to the old bow-string!Honour to the bugle-horn!Honour to the woods unshorn!Honour to the Lincoln green!Honour to the archer keen!Honour to tight little John,And the horse he rode upon!Honour to bold Robin Hood,Sleeping in the underwood!Honour to maid Marian,And to all the Sherwood clan!Though their days have hurried byLet us two a burden try.” ― John Keats
“She that was ever fair and never proud,Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,She that in wisdom never was so frailTo change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,See suitors following and not look behind,She was a wight, if ever such wight were,--DESDEMONA: To do what?IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.” ― William Shakespeare, Othello
“Fate is not fair, but it is just. Hard work is never in vain…even when it does not achieve what you wished.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“The fortunate man is the one who cannot take more than a couple of drinks without becoming intoxicated. The unfortunate wight is the one who can take many glasses without betraying a sign; who must take numerous glasses in order to get the ‘kick’.” ― Jack London, John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs
“...I'm not a pie-construct, am I? What I know about pie could fill a...a little...the tiny scoop you use to eat soup.” “A spoon?” “No, that can't be right. That's ridiculous. Spoon. Get out of here with your nonsense words.” ― Will Wight, Ghostwater
“Some believe that hope is the strongest force in the universe,” Dross said. “Although that is objectively untrue.” ― Will Wight, Ghostwater
“I have so little. To a beggar, even scraps become a feast.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
“Eithan looked from his enemy’s weapon to his own. “Longhook, is it? You can call me Tiny Scissors.” ― Will Wight, Skysworn
“I don’t know who that idiot is, running around in that cloak like he thinks he’s an assassin, but where did he get that beautifully crafted doll?’ That’s what people are going to say about you.” ― Will Wight, City of Light
“The son of a cripple might be a cripple, but the son of tigers won’t be a dog.” ― Will Wight, Unsouled
