Uno de los ejemplos más consumados de la caótica y endemoniada pronunciación inglesa es el poema «The Chaos» (1922), del holandés Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), alias Charivarius, escritor, viajero y profesor de inglés. En su primera versión contenía 146 versos, pero fue creciendo en sucesivas ediciones ―muchas apócrifas― hasta alcanzar o superar los 274 versos con ochocientas de las peores irregularidades fonéticas del inglés. Quien intente leerlo en voz alta se convencerá de que el inglés es, quizá, el idioma más absurdo del mundo en cuanto a fonética. Admira, de hecho, que haya podido llegar a convertirse en la lengua internacional de la ciencia.
Dearest creature in creation
studying 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 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, hear 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, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via;
pipe, snipe, recipe and choir;
cloven, oven; how and low,
script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and 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”: desirable-admirable from “admire”,
lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
chatham, brougham, renown, but known,
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, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
to pronounce revered and severed,
demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
blood and flood are not like food,
nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
which is said to rime 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.
Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
now: position and transition;
would it tally with my rhyme
if I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
but cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
you’ll envelop lists, I hope,
in a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven;
Rachel, ache, moustache; eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed;
people, leopard; towed but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
between 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 is not 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 rime 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.
“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker”,
quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor”,
making, it is sad but true,
in bravado, much ado.
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.
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
you say mani-(fold) like many,
which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
and distinguish buffet, buffet;
brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds correct and sterling
hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
mind the z! (a gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
to such sounds as I don’t mention,
sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
though I often heard, as you did,
funny rhymes to unicorn,
yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
tripod, menial, denial,
troll and trolley, realm and ream,
schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
may be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
but you’re not supposed to say
piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
worthless documents? How pallid,
how uncouth he, couchant, looked,
when for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
paramour, enamoured, flighty,
episodes, antipodes,
acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,
rather say in accents pure:
nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
wan, sedan and artisan.
The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
there are more but I forget ‘em.
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
lighten your anxiety.
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