90% Of People Can't Pronounce This Whole Poem. You Have To Try It.

[TexasTowelie]

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[gvstn]

1. Thanks for the link.

I have to say there are a few words that I don't even know (sward for example) perhaps they are more British or archaic? And also a few toughies that I've read many times but never actually say out loud.

I'm going to have to actually read it out loud to truly test myself. I sure I'll learn something new thanks to online dictionaries that pronounce words now. I'll admit that I still read Stephen as Stefan (can't seem to get past that one).

[Jenoch]

4. I think the only word that tripped me up was sward.

I looked it up and it is British for lawn and is pronounced the same as 'sword'.

This poem is evidence of why English is one of the more difficult languages to learn if it is not your cradle language. There are about a million words in the English language, many more than most other languages.

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. That's partly because English has a LOT of words for the same thing...

that come from Anglo-Saxon and then Norman French. Cow/beef, deer/venison, swine/pork, for instance, are examples of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French word pairs (and in common use, the Anglo-Saxon came to refer to the animal, and the Norman to the meat).

Also: Ward/guard, smell/odour, belief/faith, shirt/blouse, lawyer/attorney, yard/garden, answer/reply, fall/autumn, weird/strange, drink/beverage, freedom/liberty, tumble/somersault, folk/people, uncouth/rude...and lots of others. Which effectively close to doubled the vocabulary of English.

[RebelOne]

2. No problem for me. I was a copy editor for 15 years. n/t

[grasswire]

9. been there nt

[winter is coming]

3. Not a problem, but I have heard both "victual" and "vittle". n/t

[Iggo]

5. There were a few I'd never seen before and a few I'd just been getting wrong...

...but the rhyming helped me out with several of those. I've been reading whatever I could get my hands on since I was four years old. Also, my Mom's from Canada and my Gran was from across the pond, so I'm familiar with a lot of the ones some other people might not be. I didn't actually count, but I'm thinking I probably got fewer than ten wrong (including the ones I fixed through rhyming).

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. I'm guessing the one that trips most people up is "Terpsichore"

(Pronounced "Terpsickery", more or less, because it's Greek). Or possibly "Balmoral" (rhymes with "immoral&quot , or "Melpemone" (like "anemone&quot ....and for Americans especially, probably "Islington" ("Izlington", not "Eyelington&quot . A word they missed: "breeches".

[grasswire]

8. loved this, thanks

Great fun to read aloud.

It's a bit Ogden Nash-ish.