Dearest Creature in Creation, Study English Pronunciation. I Will Teach You in My Verse

Dearest creature in creation, We say actual but victual. Study English pronunciation. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. I will teach you in my verse Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Dull, bull, and George ate late. Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Tear in eye, your dress will tear. Science, conscience, scientific. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. Dies and diet, lord and word, We say hallowed, but allowed, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. People, leopard, towed, but vowed. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Mark the differences, moreover, Now I surely will not plague you Between mover, cover, clover; With such words as plaque and ague. Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, But be careful how you speak: Chalice, but police and lice; Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Camel, constable, unstable, Cloven, oven, how and low, Principle, disciple, label. Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Petal, panel, and canal, Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Senator, spectator, mayor. Exiles, similes, and reviles; Tour, but our and succour, four. Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Solar, mica, war and far; Sea, idea, Korea, area, One, anemone, Balmoral, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Compare alien with Italian, Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Dandelion and battalion. Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Blood and flood are not like food, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Nor is mould like should and would. Say aver, but ever, fever, Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Toward, to forward, to reward. Heron, granary, canary. And your pronunciation's OK Crevice and device and aerie. When you correctly say croquet, Face, but preface, not efface. Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Friend and fiend, alive and live. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ivy, privy, famous; clamour Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. And enamour rhyme with hammer. Ear, but earn and wear and tear River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Do not rhyme with here but ere. Doll and roll and some and home. Seven is right, but so is even, Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Neither does devour with clangour. Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, Is a paling stout and spikey? And then singer, ginger, linger, Won't it make you lose your wits, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Writing groats and saying grits? Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Query does not rhyme with very, Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Nor does fury sound like bury. Islington and Isle of Wight, Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Housewife, verdict and indict. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though the differences seem little, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!