Ruize-rijmen

14. De chaos.

De schrijver van het werkje over de uitspraak van het Engelsch ‘Drop your foreign Accent’, droeg mij op, aangezien ik nogal makkelijk rijm - meende hij - voor zijn boek een gedicht te vervaardigen, waarin al de gewone struikelblokken van de Engelsche uitspraak verwerkt moesten worden. Ik kreeg een lijst van ongeveer 450 woorden, alfabetisch gerangschikt, en daarmee moest ik maar aan den gang gaan - asjeblieft! Hier is het. Met toestemming van den schrijver van ‘Drop’ bied ik het alvast mijn velen vloeiend Engelsch sprekenden landgenooten aan, om er zich op een regenachtigen Zondagmiddag mee onledig te houden. Zij zullen merken, dat elk paar regels volkomen zuiver rijm geeft, en dat de klemtoon duidelijk door het rhythme aangegeven wordt. Moge het alom schrik en ontsteltenis verspreiden.

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.

[p. 126]

 

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, hut 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,

 

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’: 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.

 

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’.

[p. 127]

 

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 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, run, circuit, conduit

 

Rime with ‘shirk' it’ and ‘beyond it’,

 

But it is not hard to teil,

 

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.

 

Stranger does not rime 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;

*) No, you are wrong. This is the plural of ‘doe’.

[p. 128]

 

Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

 

Query does not rime 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 rime 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, jour;

 

Gas, alas and Arkansas!

 

Sea, idea, guinea, area,

 

Psalm; Maria, but malaria;

 

Youth, south, southern; cleanse and 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 is 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, but scourging;

 

Ear, but earn; and wear and tear

 

Do not rime with ‘here’, 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 spikey;

[p. 129]

 

Won't it make you lose your wits,

 

Writing ‘groats’ and saying groats?

 

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 rimes with ‘enough,’

 

Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

 

Hiccough has the sound of ‘cup’......

 

My advice is - give it up!