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~~~~~~~ WITandWISDOM™ - May 20, 1999 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: How much we enjoy what we have is more important than how much we have. - Bits & Pieces (Magazine: BITS & PIECES http://www.epinc.com/) ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: I spoke a word of praise today, One I had no need to say. I spoke a word of praise to one Commending some small service done, And in return, to my surprise, I reaped rewards of mountain size; For such a look of pleasure shone Upon his face - I'll never own A gift more beautiful to see Than that swift smile he gave to me. I spoke one little word of praise And sunshine fell on both our ways. By Helen Lowrie, From "The Gift of Wonder" - Bits & Pieces, February 4, 1993 (Magazine: BITS & PIECES http://www.epinc.com/) ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: LEARNING ENGLISH IS NOT EASY. Here's proof: By G. J. Nolst Trenite 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!!! (Joilo Barbosa) The above poem is a shorter version of "The Chaos", written by G. J. Nolst Trenite alias Charivarius (1870-1946), who was a Dutchman, and an English schoolteacher, who wrote funny poems (in Dutch, except this one) for newspapers between 1910-1920. The poem dates to about 1922. The above information was found at http://lobelia.physics.wisc.edu/jnb/lingua_franca.html More of similar stuff can be read at http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/english.html Regards, Attila Nagy ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: A man lost two buttons from his shirt and put them in his pants pocket. But the pocket had a hole, so the buttons fell into his shoe. Unfortunately, the shoe sole also had a hole, so he lost the buttons. Since pockets with holes, holes without buttons, and shoe soles with holes are useless, the man ripped the buttonholes out of his shirt and the pocket from his pants and tossed them in the trash along with the soles of his shoes. After looking in a mirror at the holes in his clothing, he decided to toss his clothes in the trash as well. A policeman observed all this and asked the man for identification. The man produced a document that he was an ordained minister of the gospel. So, of course, the policeman promptly escorted him to a mental institution. The minister protested violently, asking why he was receiving such unjust treatment. "Look, it's the best place for you now," the policeman replied, "Anyone claiming to be a preacher, but who doesn't save souls or wear holy clothes has probably lost his buttons." (Marcia Beuhman via E-zine: MONDAY FODDER Mailto:dgaufaaa@iohk.com) ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: In "Today in the Word" the story is told about a woman who once came to Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia, requesting that the man who killed her husband be put to death. The man had fallen from the top of a palm tree when he had been gathering dates and landed on this lady's husband and killed him. The king said, "It is your right to exact compensation, and it is also your right to ask for this man's life. But it is my right to decree how he shall die. You shall take this man with you and he shall be tied to the foot of a palm tree and then you shall climb to the top of the tree and cast yourself down upon him from that height. In that way you will take his life as he took your husband's. Or perhaps," Ibn Saud added, "you would prefer after all to take the blood money?" The widow took the money. (E-zine: DAILY ENCOUNTER http://www.actsweb.org/encounter.htm) |