English Lesson - Zungenbrecher

[anjaxxo]

TheEnglish 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 whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses,not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
When couldn'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.
And I speak of a foot,and you show me your feet,
But I give 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 plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be called 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 will all agree,
Is the trickiest language you everdid 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.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.

And then there's close 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 astart.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I wasfive,

. . . And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!

 

[Ulrich]

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!!!

-- B. Shaw

 

[Ulrich]

The Spell-Checker Poem (Candidate for a Pullet Surprise)
by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

 

[Ulrich]

Conjugal Conjugations
by Americus Wellington Bellaw

Dear Maid, let me speak
What I never yet spoke:
You have made my heart squeak
As it never yet squoke
And for sight of you, both my eyes ache as they ne'er before oak.

With your voice my ears ring,
And a sweeter ne'er rung,
Like a bird's on the wing
When at morn it has wung.
And gladness to me it doth bring, such as never voice brung.

My feelings I'd write,
But they cannot be wrote,
And who can indite
What was never indote!
And my love I hasten to plight--the first that I plote.

Yes, you I would choose,
Whom I long ago chose,
And my fond spirit sues
As it never yet sose,
And ever on you do I muse, as never man mose.

The house where you bide
Is a blessed abode;
Sure my hopes I can hide,
For they will not be hode,
And no person living has sighed, as, darling, I've sode.

Your glances they shine
As no others have shone,
And all else I'd resign
That a man could resone,
And surely no other could pine as I lately have pone.

And don't you forget
You will ne'er be forgot,
You never should fret
As at times you have frot,
I would chase all the cares that beset, if they ever besot.

For you I would weave
Songs that never were wove,
And deeds I'd achieve
Which no man achove,
And for me you never should grieve, as for you I have grove.

I'm as worthy a catch
As ever was caught,
O, your answer I watch
As a man never waught,
And we'd make the most elegant match as ever was maught.

Let my longings not sink;
I would die if they sunk.
O, I ask you to think
As you never have thunk,
And our fortunes and lives let us link, as no lives could be lunk.

 

[anjaxxo]

Oh je, Ulrich, now I got you going

 

[texasmatze]

Englisch für Anfänger:

Auf Deutsch:
Drei Hexen schauen drei Swatch Uhren an.
Welche Hexe schaut welche Swatch Uhr an?

Und nun in Englisch:
Three witches watch three swatch watches.
Wich witch watch which swatch watch?

Englisch für Fortgeschrittene:

Auf Deutsch:
Drei geschlechtsumgewandelte Hexen schauen sich drei Swatch Uhrenknöpfe an.
Welche geschlechtsumgewandelte Hexe schaut sich welchen Swatch Uhrenknopf an?

Auf Englisch:
Three switched witches watch three swatch watch switches.
Which switched witch watch which swatch watch switch?

Englisch im Endstadium:

Wieder auf Deutsch:
Drei Schweizer Hexen-Schlampen, die sich wünschen, geschlechtsumgewandelt zu sein, schauen sich Schweizer Swatch Uhrenknöpfe an.
Welche Schweizer Hexen Schlampe, die sich wünscht, geschlechtsumgewandelt zu sein, schaut sich welchen Schweizer Swatch Uhrenknopf an?

Das ganze nun in Englisch:
Three swiss witch-bitches, which wished to be switched swiss witch-bitches, wish to watch three swiss swatch watch switches.
Which swiss witch-bitch which wishes to be a switched swiss witch-bitch, which to watch which swiss swatch watch switch?

 

[texasmatze]

Ich hab jetzt noch nen Knoten in der Zunge

 

[Ezri]

Ich hab jetzt noch nen Knoten in der Zunge

 

[Admin]

lol, die sind nicht schlecht; und dann sagt auch noch jeder, Englisch wäre eine einfache Sprache

 

[Ulrich]

Bin ich denn der einzige, dem die Rechtschreib- bzw. Grammatikfehler in Texasmatzes englischen Versionen auffallen?