I saw this poem appear on the Linguist List about 10 years ago.  I dug it up again today because of something that reminded me of it.  I couldn't find it listed in the LinguistList archives, but found it elsewhere.

In poetry form, it is an invaluable resource on English pronounciation for non-native English speakers. And native English speakers get a lot of fun reading it too.

Enjoy ......

=========================

English is Tough Stuff
----------------------

   This poem is properly titled "The Chaos", and appeared in Drop Your Foreign Accent - Engelse Uitspraakoefeningen, by G. Nolst Trenite (5th rev. ed., H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1929).  It can be found at:
    [...]

     [The poem "The Chaos" is an accumulation of lots of things
     that are strange about the way words are pronounced in English. Available at several web locations:

http://www.frivolity.com/teatime/Songs_and_Poems/english_is_tough_stuff.html

http://4umi.com/charivarius/chaos/
http://www.jokes2go.com/poems/7237.html?21
==================

Jeff

Laurent

Well, Jeff, that was fun except for showing the painful inadequacy of my education when it comes to mythology. I guess I better get my Homer out...

/G

Thanks Jeff, that was a roar...I really enjoyed reading that, its a real feast!

It really bring out the difficulties doesn't it? Laurent, so would I like to see one about French

That was both extremely fun and quite depressing. I was rather concerned that I had to look so many words up in a dictionary, and not just the mythological ones!

I have one little question, though. How would you native speakers pronounce the following sentence:

"Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key"

Or rather, how would you pronounce 'ay' and 'aye' respectively? Since either can be a variant spelling of the other, both can be pronounced either as 'eye' or as '[h]ey', which is of course also the point of this line. Would you pronounce it as 'eye, eye, eye, ey, ey, ee'?

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;

The English 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.

[...]

http://www.humbleapostrophe.com/english.html

Really funny! And it's interesting material to be used with students. Thanks!

Marisa