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Saying What You See:

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The peculiarities of English pronunciation.

English is a nightmare to speak if you try to read aloud words phonetically. C-A-T really does sound like kat (the C has a hard K sound). But if you didn't know the individual rules, how would you pronounce knee? Ceiling? Gnat? Or Enough? And how in the name of all that is good did we come up with those spellings in the first place? What is wrong with nee, seeling, nat and enuff?

In the days of old, when Knights were bold…

Back in the days of yore (when nites romed the land and maydens were kept in kasulls) people today wouldn't have been able to understand a word that was spoken. They may have used the same words as we do today (although many words have evolved or disappeared, whilst more have been invented over time), but if we met someone from back then it would sound to us as if they were speaking gobbledegook. Mediaeval words were spelled the way they sounded, and sounded the way they were spelled. So our time-travelling friend would actually say K-NEE or G-NAT. Depending on when he came from, he might also say MAR-DAY instead of made. It's only slightly more recently that the final E at the end of words became silent.

Frozen in time

One reason we have such peculiar spellings in the 21^st Century is due to the invention of the printing press, and subsequent evolution of speech. The first printing presses that used moveable type were in use in the mid-15^th Century and, whilst the pronunciation and meanings of words moved on from that time, their invention froze the evolution of spelling. To ensure that everyone any given document was able to read it, spelling became standardised (to a greater or lesser extent). It wasn't until the early 19^th Century that there was a move to globally standardise spelling, but there were certainly more than a passing attempt in previous centuries.
In the meantime, the English language changed and evolved. Meanings were changed, pronunciations of letters, words and even phrases altered, and more words were added to the lexicon as time passed. The only thing that remained unalterable to a greater or lesser degree was the spelling. So over time, the K was dropped in KN words, the Æ or æ became (pronunciated) EE (spelled E), and even today there is disagreement over pronunciation of words starting with H (e.g. history or honour), to name just a few examples.

Foreign Influences

English History is full of stories of countries conquering, foreign trading and tribal travel. These global interactions meant that words were swapped, stolen and borrowed, giving us a language rich and expressive… and impossible to spell!
Before 1066, Britain had been a mish-mash of tribes and races ruling at different times in different places. However, by the 7^th Century, Latin script was beginning to creep in for written form, replacing a now long-forgotten Anglo-Saxon runic script, the Futhorc. Futhorc was still influential in the creation of our alphabet, though, resulting in the evolution of D, TH and W. The later conquering Normans found they needed to create new letters to represent sounds hitherto unknown to their tongue and came up with a letter that we now know as GH. (The letter itself, Yogh Ȝ ȝ, disappeared sometime in the 15^th Century.) Likewise, other languages have letters and sounds which we do not, and so we have had to create a sequence of letters to represent these foreign sounds. For example, Greek has rho – Ρ ρ – which we have converted into RH for rhythm and rhapsody, and phi – Φ φ – which gives us our PH words.

Chaos

The following poem demonstrates the irregularities of English spellings and pronunciations. The Chaos is a beautifully crafted poem, cataloguing over 800 problem words within the English language. It also highlights the fact that a rule for one example does not necessarily follow for another example. So the first line Dearest Creature in Creation may have very similar spellings for the second and fourth words, but CREAT in Creature is one syllable whereas CREAT in Creation is two. And so it continues!
Can you read it out loud? (Warning, it is VERY long – I have included the full version!)

Gerard Nolst Trenité – The Chaos (1922)

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
    I will teach you in my verse
    Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
    Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
    Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
    Just compare heart, hear 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 but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
    But be careful how you speak,
    Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, and bleak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
    Woven, oven, how and low,
    Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
    Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
    Missiles, similes, and reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
    Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
    Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable – admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
    Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
    Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone.

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
    Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
    Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind.

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
    This phonetic labyrinth
    Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, and plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
    Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
    Peter, petrol and patrol?

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 exactly rhymes with khaki.
    Discount, viscount, load and broad,
    Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
    Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
    Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
    Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
    Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
    Would it tally with my rhyme
    If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
    Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
    Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
    To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
    Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, 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, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
    But it is not hard to tell
    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
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
    Pussy, hussy and possess,
    Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
    Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
    Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
    Making, it is sad but true,
    In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
    Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
    Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
    Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
    Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
    Mind! Meandering but mean,
    Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
    Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
    Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
    Prison, bison, treasure trove,
    Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
    Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
    Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
    Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
    Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
    Evil, devil, mezzotint,
    Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
    Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
    Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
    Funny rhymes to unicorn,
    Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
    No. Yet Froude compared with proud
    Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
    Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
    Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
    But you're not supposed to say
    Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
    How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
    When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
    Episodes, antipodes,
    Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
    Rather say in accents pure:
    Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
    Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
    Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
    Say then these phonetic gems:
    Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
    Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
    Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
    With and forthwith, one has voice,
    One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
    Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
    Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
    Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
    Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
    Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
    Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
    Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
    Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
    Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
    Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
    Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
    Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
    Bona fide, alibi
    Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
    Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
    Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
    Rally 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.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
    Face, but preface, then grimace,
    Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
    Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
    Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
    With the sound of saw and sauce;
    Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
    Respite, spite, consent, resent.
    Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
    Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
    Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
    G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
    I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
    Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
    Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
    Won't it make you lose your wits
    Writing groats and saying "grits"?

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 rhymes with enough,
    Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!