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Pedro
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: March 2014
Messages: 93
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Funny how you can have several unconnected conversations and the same or similar topic will be raised by the opposite party. One such recent subject for me has been about English speling and pronunciation. I thought this might amuse:
By The Lough
By Pedro
Escaped at last from Yorkshire's Brough
On the shore sat Jimmy Clough
Near outfall from the mining sough
And thought on how his life were tough.
Da had caught him and Davy Bough
Drinking from that other trough
And smacked him right hard and thorough
And dumped him, skint, in next borough.
So Jimmy had to earn some dough
And let that smarmy git from Slough,
(Here on two weeks furlough,)
Hard and fast his arse to plough.
Stirred from pleasant dreams of Bough
By the raucous cry of chough
Wakes with tears, a sob, a cough,
And ache of last night's tumble rough.
A drink to think and stop his hiccough.
"With all this I've had enough,
I'm done, I'm through.
Like the snake skin on yon bough
My old life I will slough
(Though some say slough)
And move elsewhere but not to Slough!"
And so he ups and goes .. to Loughborough.
©Copyright 2017 Pedro
[Updated on: Mon, 31 July 2017 12:03]
Pedro
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Mark
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Likes it here |
Location: Earth
Registered: April 2013
Messages: 276
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Reminds me of something a friend passed along to me a few years ago. He got it from his brother-in-law (who was forwarded it from someone else, and who is bilingual in English and Japanese), who notes that this is exactly how those who did not grow up with English as their first language view English. (As a side note, it's written in American English, so some of the terms might mean differently here than they do elsewhere; for example, a boot is a type of footwear in the U.S.)
****
English is my Second language
The English Lesson
We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
If I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be named kese?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!
So our English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the craziest language you ever did see.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat;
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Or dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose,
Just look them up, and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five
[Updated on: Tue, 01 August 2017 00:10] |
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