CRAZY ENGLISH

CRAZY ENGLISH!

 “ If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

    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!!! ”

BIRTHSTONE POEMS

BIRTHSTONE POEMS By her who in January was born No gem save garnets shall be worn They will ensure her constancy True friendship and fidelity. The February born shall find Sincerity and peace of mind, Freedom from passion and from care, If they, the amethyst will wear. By her who in March was born No gem save bloodstone shall be worn They will ensure her constancy True friendship and fidelity. She who from April dates her years, diamonds shall wear, lest bitter tears For vain repentance flow. Who first beholds the light of day In spring's sweet, flower month of May And wears an emerald all her life Shall be a loved and a loving wife. By her who in June was born No gem save pearls shall be worn They will ensure her constancy True friendship and fidelity.

The gleaming ruby should adorn, All those who in July are born, For thus they'll be exempt and free, From lover's doubts and anxiety. Wear a peridot or for thee, No conjugal fidelity, The August born without this stone, `Tis said, must live unloved; alone. A maiden born when autumn leaves Are rustling in September's breeze, A sapphire on her brow should bind; To bring her joy and peace of mind. October's child is born for woe, And life's vicissitudes must know, But lay an opal on her breast, And hope will lull those woes to rest. Who first comes to this world below In dreary November's fog and snow, Should prize the topaz amber hue, Emblem of friends and lovers true. If cold December gave you birth The month of snow and ice and mirth Place on your hand a turquoise blue; Success will bless whate'er you do.

—Gregorian Birthstone Poems

MY FAVORITE QUOTES

MY FAVORITE QUOTES


A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Alexandre Dumas


The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.
Anne Frank


"Friend" has become a word we use unthinkingly and it's almost ruined as a result. It started before we had 'friends' on Facebook whom we've never met. But the abuse of this crucial part of human existence surely sinks even lower with the notion that you can rent a friend.

Friendship must be based on gift. You'll do something for a friend happy to receive nothing in return - though, of course, you'll receive much. But if you call someone a friend, in that call-centre kind of way, even as you're doing the cost-benefit analysis, then you're undermining it, and undoing yourself.
You can have everything in life, Aristotle thought, but if you have no true friend, it'll be no life at all. That's the risk we run: destroying friendship by making friends service providers.
Mark Vernon, author of The Meaning of Friendship



"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are."


Never accept love if you can't give yourself in return.
Never start a relationship you know you'll want to end eventually.
Don't go for looks, it can deceive; Don't go for wealth - even that fades away.
Go for someone who makes you smile because only a smile makes a dark day seem bright.



Thanks to those who hated me, you made me a stronger person. thanks to those who loved me, you made my heart grow fonder. thanks to those who envied me, you made my self-esteem grow stronger. thanks to those who cared, you made me feel important. thanks to those who entered into my life, you made me who i am today. thanks to those who left, you showed me that nothing lasts forever. thanks to those who stayed, you showed me "true friendship".