A Glance at our Pronunciation by Prannoy Roy

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?

Time, Love and Thinking!

Prologue -

This is my first Blog post, so it's going to be short! :)

Like they say, Love as a word has countless definitions, what really matters is who blend with you to define it. It's like an Art, you cannot stick to one particular thought/way, You must make your own! Over the years, I've seen the beauty of it being crushed under the feet of the "so-called-better-generation-of-people". How subtle, the Care and Affection those days were. It is believed that the Next Generation is always wiser than the one before OR Philosophy of one generation is Common Sense to the next one. I have seen things change over the years, I have seen people change over Time. Bombay, the now known "Mumbai"(I don't really like the new name!) has changed completely, I feel the local "Bambai" sounded far better! Anyway, coming back to my point, I do not see the Simplicity in it, The city which was once so Humble and Nice is now crowded with Materialists and Narcissists and Pleasure Ravening individuals, who've redefined the meaning of Enjoyment! Clubbin', Partying, to Freak out, do all those things which gives you Happiness(or so they call it) over the Weekend and gets you back to the usual Whiny behaviour throughout the week. And the Irony of this condition is that they claim "They Enjoyed" Ha! Really? Sadly your enjoyment lasted as long as a Flower, that blooms at Dawn and Withers at Dusk. Analyse(not a lot!) but a little to give you a clear picture as of where your life is headed. Many of our lives have become like a Ship wandered in the Ocean of Time with no Mariner's Compass. A person's demeanour is influenced by the kind of group he's been raised along with. However, I will strongly stick to my perception that, A person's inner conscience should break-free from all the pressure from the outside world and can always try to swim against the flow of the situation. Things won't be easy, but no one promised it would be. You have to find your way, think rationally and be man enough to stand by your words. Your thoughts will trigger your actions which will write your Fate, sketch your Destiny, in the Book of Time! Think about it!

That's all for now, I guess it was pretty much of a Revelation from my side for someone who's new to Blog writing!...