Pint Tree

I came beneath a pint tree bough
When I was searching for my cough.
I could not reach the pine cones, though,
The branch was high and I was lough.
"Ah, me," I cried, with rueful laugh,
"Would that I were a tall giraugh."
Just then a wind came hurtling through,
The branches cracked, so fierce it blough.
This blast, so shrill it made me cough,
And on it went with angry sough;
I put my treasure in my mough
And started home across the slough
Forgetting what I'd come to dough.
Bossy was standing by here trough;
Did I mistake or did she scough?

Tough Bough

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.

And cork and work and card and ward
And font front and word and sword
Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead; it's said like bed and not like 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,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,
Or dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose.

There's so much more that one can add
Oh, come on, it's not so bad
So here we go with to and fro
And now we know of how and snow.

How about this crazy pair -
Hear and wear (and here and where)
This could go on with bear and sear
Let's save those for another year.

Here is yet another batch
Touch and couch - watch and catch
Again must never rhyme with rain
Lien with pier nor weir with seine.

I shall have to be quite firm
About rhyming storm (or form) with worm
Elite with mite and come with home
Some with dome; bomb with comb.

Hone is not pronounced like done
Nor cone like gone nor phone like none
Then there's our old friend been
Which looks like seen but said like win.

And do and go; then thwart and cart.
Come, come! I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

NATO

Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language ... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

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.)
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.
Foeffer 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!!!

Spelling Checker

Jerrold H. Zar, Northern Illinois University, jhzar@niu.edu
Title suggested by Pamela Brown.
Based on opening lines suggested by Mark Eckman.

CANDIDATE
FOR A PULLET SURPRISE

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

Published in the Journal of Irreprodicble Results, January/February 1994, page 13.
Reprinted ("by popular demand") in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, Vol. 45, No. 5/6, 2000, page 20.
Journal of Irreproducible Results, PO Box 234, Chicago Heights IL 60411 USA

William Safire's Rules for Writers:

Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

19 Rules for Good Riting

  1. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
  2. Just between you and I case is important.
  3. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
  4. Watch out for irregular verbs which has cropped into our language.
  5. Don't use no double negatives.
  6. A writer mustn't shift your point of view.
  7. When dangling, don't use participles.
  8. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
  9. Don't use a run on sentence you got to punctuate it.
  10. About sentence fragments.
  11. In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.
  12. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
  13. Its important to use apostrophe's right.
  14. Don't abbrev.
  15. Check to see if you any words out.
  16. In my opinion I think that an author when he is writing shouldn't get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need.
  17. And, of course, there's that old one: Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
  18. Also, never obfuscate your documentation with pretentious, ostentatious or histrionic language.
  19. Last but not least, lay off cliches.
  20. always capitalize first letter of your sentence.
  21. don't end a sentence with a comma,
  22. but, don't begin sentence with 'but'.
  23. and, don't begin sentence with 'and', neither.
  24. run yore tetx thru a speling chekcer.
  25. be concise, except when you are in a hurry, or need to go to the w.c., or are simply tired, in which case (or cases, i'm not sure, but you know what i mean), be more conciser.
  26. again, avoid redundancy. do not repeat thyself over and over and over. in other words, be short, brief, and to the point.
  27. like, when writing technical stuff, don't use slang, you know.
  28. remember not to needlessly split an infinitive.
  29. with a preposition don't begin a sentence.
  30. simply stated, avoid adverbial clauses.
  31. avoid santa clauses.
  32. all wrules are made to be broken. so remember, forget what i just said.

HOW TO WRITE GOOD

Here are several very important but often forgotten rules of English:
  1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
  2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
  4. Employ the vernacular.
  5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
  6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
  7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  8. Contractions aren't necessary.
  9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
  10. One should never generalize.
  11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
  12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
  13. Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
  14. Profanity sucks.
  15. Be more or less specific.
  16. Understatement is always best.
  17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
  18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
  19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
  21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
  22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
  23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Spelling

"I" Before "E": Taught to children in only its abbreviated form, this helpful rhyme can help even the most horrid spellers navigate the tricky waters of the "i" and "e" vowel combination. Below is the complete rhyming rule: