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, Susy, 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!
Gerald Nolst Trenite
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
Let There Be Light!
An inspiring essay for those who are having difficulty scoring in SPM Sejarah...
Agama Islam memberikan banyak pengaruh terhadap masyarakat Melayu tradisional pada abad ke-19. Pada abad tersebut masyarakat Melayu hidup dalam kegelapan. Kebanyakan masyrakat mengamalkan judi, riba dan melakukan banyak kesalahan seperti mencuri, merogol dan sebagainya. Kaum wanita pula dipandang hina dan mereka tidak dapat mewarisi kebijaksanaan moyang mereka.
Setelah agama Islam dipupuk. Penganut agama Islam mengenal sistem tenaga nasional, iaitu sebuah penjana kuasa elektrik yang memberikan masyarakat Melayu lampu. Dengan adanya cahaya dari lampu, masyarakat Melayu tidak akan hidup dalam kegelapan. Perlakuan seperti zina, riba, judi dan sebagainya tidak dilakukan lagi kerana malu adanya tiang lampu di merata-rata yang menyuluh tingkah laku mereka. In English, they are too shy to do tat stuff in the light. Scared ppl see ma. Stupid!
Mereka akhirnya dapat belajar kerana mempunyai lampu meja dan ini menjadikan mereka bijak. Mula-mula mereka mengambil UPSR, kemudian PMR, SPM dan akhirnya STPM. Banyak telah pergi ke Universiti Cahaya Langit kerana di sana terdapat lampu untuk pelajaran mereka. Adanya elektrik, mereka tengok filem cerita pokemon dan digimon. Akhirnya mereka berjaya membina balik empangan yg roboh itu dengan jentera yang berkuasa tinggi.
Mereka akhirnya dapat belajar kerana mempunyai lampu meja dan ini menjadikan mereka bijak. Mula-mula mereka mengambil UPSR, kemudian PMR, SPM dan akhirnya STPM. Banyak telah pergi ke Universiti Cahaya Langit kerana di sana terdapat lampu untuk pelajaran mereka. Adanya elektrik, mereka tengok filem cerita pokemon dan digimon. Akhirnya mereka berjaya membina balik empangan yg roboh itu dengan jentera yang berkuasa tinggi.
[Disclaimer: This is not an article produced by the blog author and should NOT be taken seriously to be written in SPM]
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