Ola querido Mestre,

ai estah o poema que lemos em nossa escola,  apos o seu curso, enquanto estavamos conversando sobre o quanto eh complicada a pronuncia da lingua Inglesa e da falta de regras nas pronuncias.

O beijo enorme e ate brevissimo!

“This Phonetic Labyrinth”

Dearest creature in creation ,

Studying English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse.

Sounds like corpse , corps , horse , and worse

—It will keep you, Susy , busy ,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear

—So shall I! Oh hear my prayer :

Pray console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new , dear, sew it!

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).

Made has not the sound of bade ;

Say – said , pay – paid , laid , but plaid .

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague .

But be careful how you speak :

Say break and steak , but bleak and streak .

Previous , precious , fuchsia , via ;

Pipe , snipe , recipe and choir ;

Cloven , oven ; how and low ;

Script , receipt ; shoe , poem , toe .

Hear me say, devoid of trickery :

Daughter , laughter and Terpsichore ;

Typhoid , measles , topsails , aisles ;

Exiles , similes , reviles ;

Wholly , holly , signal , signing ;

Thames , examining , combining .

Scholar , vicar and cigar ;

Solar , mica , war and far .

From desire to desirable , admirable from admire .

Lumber , plumber ; bier but brier ;

Chatham , brougham ; renown but known ,

From knowledge ; done , but gone and tone ;

One , anemone ; Balmoral;

Kitchen , lichen ; laundry , laurel ;

Gertrude , German ; wind and mind .

Scene , Melpomene , mankind;

Tortoise , turquoise , chamois-leather ;

Reading , reading , heathen , heather .

This phonetic labyrinth

Gives moss , gross , brook , brooch , ninth and plinth .

Billet does not end like ballet ,

Bouquet , wallet , mallet , chalet .

Blood and flood are not like food ,

Nor is mould like would and should .

Banquet is not nearly parquet ,

Which is said to rhyme with “darky.”

Viscous , viscount , load and broad ;

Toward , to forward , to reward .

And your pronunciation’s O.K.,

When you say correctly croquet ;

Rounded , wounded ; grieve and sieve ;

Friend and fiend ; alive and live ;

Liberty , library , heave and heaven ;

Rachel , ache , moustache ; eleven.

We say hallowed , but allowed ;

People , leopard ; towed but vowed .

Mark the differences, moreover ,

Twixt mover , plover , Dover ;

Leeches , breeches ; wise , precise ;

Chalice , but police and lice ;

Camel, constable , unstable ;

Principle , disciple ; label;

Petal , penal and canal ;

Wait , surmise , plait , promise , pal.

Suit , suite , ruin ; circuit , conduit

Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it.”

But it’s very hard to tell,

Why it’s pall , mall , but Pall Mall .

Muscle , muscular ; gaol ; iron ;

Timber , climber ; bullion , lion ;

Worm and storm ; chaise , chaos , chair ;

Senator , spectator , mayor .

Ivy , privy ; famous ; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

Pussy , hussy and possess;

desert , but dessert , address.

Golf , wolf ; countenance ; lieutenants

Hoist , in lieu of flags, left pennants .

River , rival ; tomb , bomb , comb ;

Doll and roll and some and home .

Stranger does not rhyme with anger ,

Neither does devour with clangour .

Soul but foul , and gaunt , 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 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 , job ; blossom , bosom , oath .

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual but victual .

Seat , sweat ; chaste , caste ;

Leigh , eight , height ;

Put , nut ; granite but unite .

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer .

Feoffer does, and zephyr , heifer .

Dull , bull ; Geoffrey , George ; ate , late ;

Hint , pint ; senate , but sedate ;

Scenic, Arabic, pacific;

Science , conscience , scientific ;

Tour , but our , and succour , four ;

Core provides a rhyme for door.

Gas , alas and Arkansas .

Sea , idea , guinea , area .

Psalm , but malaria ;

Youth , south , southern ; cleanse , but clean ;

Doctrine , turpentine , marine ,

Compare alien with Italian ,

Dandelion with battalion .

Sally with ally ; yea , ye—

Eye , I , ay , aye , whey , key , quay !

Say aver , but ever , fever ,

Neither , leisure , skein , receiver ,

Never guess — it’s not safe.

We say calves , valves , half , but Ralf .

Heron, granary , canary ;

Crevice and device and eyrie;

Face but preface , but efface ;

Phlegm , phlegmatic ; ass , glass , bass ;

Large , but target ; gin , give , verging ;

Ought , out , joust and scour , scourging .

Ear , earn ; and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with “here ” and “there ” but “ere .”

Seven is right, but so is even ,

Hyphen , roughen , nephew , Stephen ;

Monkey , donkey , clerk and jerk ;

Asp , grasp , wasp ; and cork and work .

Pronunciation — think of Psyche —

Is a paling, stout and spiky,

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing “groats” and saying “grits.”

It’s a dark abyss, or tunnel ,

Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale ;

Islington and Isle of Wight;

Housewife, verdict and indict .

Don’t you think so, reader, rather

Saying lather , bather , father ?

Finally, which rhymes with “enough ”

—Though , through , plough , cough , hough ,

Or tough ?

Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”

My advice is — give it up!!!