Élan Vital

Concordant Chaos

Dearest Creature in Creation v.5

This is a compilation of many variants of an original delicious poem, sometimes called “The Chaos”, otherwise after its opening salvo, “Dearest creature in creation”.  It was revised steadily over the many years, though never complete. Prepare your tongue, and read it out loud! C. Scott notes that he has encoded a version of this poem in a khipu conlang. I am stunsailed.

Italics – a word whose pronunciation and spelling are contrasted.
Bold – a word whose pronunciation is particularly rare or varies by dialect
Underline – a word or phrase that doesn’t fit the sequence, or filler text that can be changed

1

Dearest creature in creation
Learning English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

2

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it! 10
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say—said, pay—paid, laid but plaid.

3

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak, 20

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir; <!– stunsull –>
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

4

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails aisles,  <!– sulls –>
Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,   30
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

5

Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Admirable, desirable; admire, desire.
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone.

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind
Beau, queue, kindred, but mankind,   40

6

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois leather,
reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?

7

Billet does not end like ballet;
Wallet, mallet; bouquet, chalet.   50
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,

8

Ricocheted, crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.   60

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
Hugh but hug, and hood but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.

9

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition.
Corral, rally, rhythm, rhyme,
Diaphragm, stigma, paradigm.

Twopence, threepence. Tease is easy,
Cease, crease, crevasse, grease and greasy. 70
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Bier, rabies, lullabies.

10

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Affidavit, David, davit.
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Sounds not like Czech or chic but ache. 80

11

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,

11.5

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.   90
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin.
Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it“.
And it can be hard to spell
When we say pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

12

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.   100

Ivy, privy, famous. Clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, dross, address.

13

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker“,
Quoth he, “than liqueur or liquor“,  110
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.

14

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.   120

15

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind: meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I’ll bet a pretty penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.

16

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?  130
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove.

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes, unlike piebald, withnibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Psychic, lien, shone, bone, pshaw.

17

Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.   140 <!– wooster –>

Say in sounds correct and sterling:
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

18

And mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,  150
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,

19

Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Distinguish pores, pause, pours and paws.
The latter sounds like doors and yours.

And recite in accent pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly, 160

20

Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
With and forthwith: one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.

21

Shoes, goes, does.    Now first say: finger,
Then say: singer, ginger, linger. 170
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Hero, heron, query, very
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth.
job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

22

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
bowing, Bowing, Bowdoin, tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use. 180

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite.

23

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late.
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific. 190
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

24

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it.
Bona fide, alibi,
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine. 200

25

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye.
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess—it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

26

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie, 210
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, glass, bass, bass.

Large, target, gin, give, and verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.

27

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross. 220

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.

28

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper), 230
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist:
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.

29

Pronunciation is a tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale, <!– rollock, gunnel –>
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don’t you think so, reader, rather—
Saying lather, bather, father, 240
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll?

30

Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying ‘grits’?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough‽

Hiccough has the sound of ‘sup‘…
My advice is: give it up!