Showing posts with label grammar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grammar. Show all posts

Saturday, November 3, 2012

When English Teachers Retire











Via

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Correction

I've seen this picture around the Internets. It's a parody image of the common phrase "That's what she said".

Via

I mean really?? Come on people. She didn't say "that's what."

"That" - is what she said.

Good try, though.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Grammar Allergy


Source

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

English Pronunciation

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

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.)
Image Source

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.
Fe0ffer 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!!!

~ English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

Source

Or If you'd rather listen to it, you can click HERE..

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

C'Mon Man


Was it bothering anyone else that the Monday Night Football announcers for the San Diego/Kansas City game kept pronouncing Ryan Succop's name as "Ryan Suck-Up"??

I mean get with the program everyone.. How do you pronounce the name Philip (or Phillip)?

It's " `Fill - ǝp" That's an upside down 'e' and it's called a "schwa". It denotes a neutral pronunciation sound, which is present in thousands of English words, as a part of the NON-STRESSED syllable of 2-syllable words.

Same thing with syrup.

You don't say "Sear Up"... nor do you say "Phil Up." The accents are on the 1st syllables. `Sear-ǝp AND `Phil-ǝp

`Suck-ǝp

Everyone try it now..


Thank you. /End rant

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Nice Tat!




























Via

It seems she realized the fact before getting the tattoo. Afterward, I'm not so sure..

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Grammar Superhero


Via

It's really not that difficult, but people just don't take the time to think about it.. nor learn it!

Ownership = apostrophe

More than one = no apostrophe

Monday, July 5, 2010

That's Why You Work At A Gas Station


Via

Yep, punctuation aside, I count at least SIX.