The Special Case of -ough<\/h1>\r\nThe letter combination -ough is really tough!\r\n\r\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zuugs.ch\/showcase\/pronunciation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/04\/Screen-Shot-2018-04-19-at-16.32.18-276x300.png\")
<\/a>\r\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/F6_AaQ6txu8?t=33s","rendered":"Try to read this poem! Look up words you don’t know how to pronounce. You may want to learn a strophe by heart. You can also listen to it in the YouTube video below.<\/p>\n
The Chaos<\/h1>\n
by Gerard Nolst Trenit\u00e9<\/p>\n
Dearest creature in creation,
\nStudy English pronunciation.
\nI will teach you in my verse
\nSounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
\nI will keep you, Suzy, busy,
\nMake your head with heat grow dizzy.
\nTear in eye, your dress will tear.
\nSo shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
\nJust compare heart, beard, and heard,
\nDies and diet, lord and word,
\nSword and sward, retain and Britain.
\n(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
\nNow I surely will not plague you
\nWith such words as plaque and ague.<\/p>\n
But be careful how you speak:
\nSay break and steak, but bleak and streak;
\nCloven, oven, how and low,
\nScript, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
\nHear me say, devoid of trickery,
\nDaughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
\nTyphoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
\nExiles, similes, and reviles;
\nScholar, vicar, and cigar,
\nSolar, mica, war and far;
\nOne, anemone, Balmoral,
\nKitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
\nGertrude, German, wind and mind,
\nScene, Melpomene, mankind.<\/p>\n
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
\nBouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
\nBlood and flood are not like food,
\nNor is mould like should and would.
\nViscous, viscount, load and broad,
\nToward, to forward, to reward.
\nAnd your pronunciation’s OK
\nWhen you correctly say croquet,
\nRounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
\nFriend and fiend, alive and live.
\nIvy, privy, famous; clamour
\nAnd enamour rhyme with hammer.<\/p>\n
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
\nDoll and roll and some and home.
\nStranger does not rhyme with anger,
\nNeither does devour with clangour.
\nSouls but foul, haunt but aunt,
\nFont, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
\nShoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
\nAnd then singer, ginger, linger,
\nReal, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
\nMarriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
\nQuery does not rhyme with very,
\nNor does fury sound like bury.
\nDost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
\nJob, nob, bosom, transom, oath.<\/p>\n
Though the differences seem little,
\nWe say actual but victual.
\nRefer does not rhyme with deafer.
\nFoeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
\nMint, pint, senate and sedate;
\nDull, bull, and George ate late.
\nScenic, Arabic, Pacific,
\nScience, conscience, scientific.
\nLiberty, library, heave and heaven,
\nRachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
\nWe say hallowed, but allowed,
\nPeople, leopard, towed, but vowed.<\/p>\n
Mark the differences, moreover,
\nBetween mover, cover, clover;
\nLeeches, breeches, wise, precise,
\nChalice, but police and lice;
\nCamel, constable, unstable,
\nPrinciple, disciple, label.
\nPetal, panel, and canal,
\nWait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
\nWorm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
\nSenator, spectator, mayor.
\nTour, but our and succour, four.
\nGas, alas, and Arkansas.
\nSea, idea, Korea, area,
\nPsalm, Maria, but malaria.
\nYouth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
\nDoctrine, turpentine, marine.<\/p>\n
Compare alien with Italian,
\nDandelion and battalion.
\nSally with ally, yea, ye,
\nEye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
\nSay aver, but ever, fever,
\nNeither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
\nHeron, granary, canary.
\nCrevice and device and aerie.
\nFace, but preface, not efface.
\nPhlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
\nLarge, but target, gin, give, verging,
\nOught, out, joust and scour, scourging.<\/p>\n
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
\nDo not rhyme with here but ere.
\nSeven is right, but so is even,
\nHyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
\nMonkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
\nAsk, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
\nPronunciation — think of Psyche!
\nIs a paling stout and spikey?
\nWon’t it make you lose your wits,
\nWriting groats and saying grits?
\nIt’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
\nStrewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
\nIslington and Isle of Wight,
\nHousewife, verdict and indict.
\nFinally, which rhymes with enough —
\nThough, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
\nHiccough has the sound of cup.
\nMy advice is to give up!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Dearest creature in creation,
\nStudy English pronunciation.
\nI will teach you in my verse
\nSounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
\nI will keep you, Suzy, busy,
\nMake your head with heat grow dizzy.
\nTear in eye, your dress will tear.
\nSo shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
\nJust compare heart, beard, and heard,
\nDies and diet, lord and word,
\nSword and sward, retain and Britain.
\n(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
\nNow I surely will not plague you
\nWith such words as plaque and ague.<\/p>\n
But be careful how you speak:
\nSay break and steak, but bleak and streak;
\nCloven, oven, how and low,
\nScript, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
\nHear me say, devoid of trickery,
\nDaughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
\nTyphoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
\nExiles, similes, and reviles;
\nScholar, vicar, and cigar,
\nSolar, mica, war and far;
\nOne, anemone, Balmoral,
\nKitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
\nGertrude, German, wind and mind,
\nScene, Melpomene, mankind.<\/p>\n
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
\nBouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
\nBlood and flood are not like food,
\nNor is mould like should and would.
\nViscous, viscount, load and broad,
\nToward, to forward, to reward.
\nAnd your pronunciation’s OK
\nWhen you correctly say croquet,
\nRounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
\nFriend and fiend, alive and live.
\nIvy, privy, famous; clamour
\nAnd enamour rhyme with hammer.<\/p>\n
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
\nDoll and roll and some and home.
\nStranger does not rhyme with anger,
\nNeither does devour with clangour.
\nSouls but foul, haunt but aunt,
\nFont, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
\nShoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
\nAnd then singer, ginger, linger,
\nReal, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
\nMarriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
\nQuery does not rhyme with very,
\nNor does fury sound like bury.
\nDost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
\nJob, nob, bosom, transom, oath.<\/p>\n
Though the differences seem little,
\nWe say actual but victual.
\nRefer does not rhyme with deafer.
\nFoeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
\nMint, pint, senate and sedate;
\nDull, bull, and George ate late.
\nScenic, Arabic, Pacific,
\nScience, conscience, scientific.
\nLiberty, library, heave and heaven,
\nRachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
\nWe say hallowed, but allowed,
\nPeople, leopard, towed, but vowed.<\/p>\n
Mark the differences, moreover,
\nBetween mover, cover, clover;
\nLeeches, breeches, wise, precise,
\nChalice, but police and lice;
\nCamel, constable, unstable,
\nPrinciple, disciple, label.
\nPetal, panel, and canal,
\nWait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
\nWorm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
\nSenator, spectator, mayor.
\nTour, but our and succour, four.
\nGas, alas, and Arkansas.
\nSea, idea, Korea, area,
\nPsalm, Maria, but malaria.
\nYouth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
\nDoctrine, turpentine, marine.<\/p>\n
Compare alien with Italian,
\nDandelion and battalion.
\nSally with ally, yea, ye,
\nEye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
\nSay aver, but ever, fever,
\nNeither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
\nHeron, granary, canary.
\nCrevice and device and aerie.
\nFace, but preface, not efface.
\nPhlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
\nLarge, but target, gin, give, verging,
\nOught, out, joust and scour, scourging.<\/p>\n
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
\nDo not rhyme with here but ere.
\nSeven is right, but so is even,
\nHyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
\nMonkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
\nAsk, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
\nPronunciation — think of Psyche!
\nIs a paling stout and spikey?
\nWon’t it make you lose your wits,
\nWriting groats and saying grits?
\nIt’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
\nStrewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
\nIslington and Isle of Wight,
\nHousewife, verdict and indict.
\nFinally, which rhymes with enough —
\nThough, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
\nHiccough has the sound of cup.
\nMy advice is to give up!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n