FEOFFER

My Facebook friend Amanda posted the article "90% OF PEOPLE CAN'T PRONOUNCE THIS WHOLE POEM" (see below).

I was doing well until I noticed that I did not know one word: FOEFFER. I continued to read and saw that it was supposed to rhyme with heifer and zephyr. I screaked, "Oh, it's FEOFFER! It's misspelled!" I'm rather sure this article originated in the U.K., because of the place names Islington and Isle Of Wight and the words with "u" which are not normally spelled that way in the U.S.; e.g.: mould, succour, clangour.

The article states: "If you can pronounce every word correctly in this poem, you will by speaking the English language better than 90% of the native English language speakers in the world." [I oftentimes wonder who does the surveys to assess the percentages.] After reading this, my question is: HOW DOES ANYONE EVER LEARN ENGLISH? (CLICK HERE to see my BLOG article A SPELLER'S DILEMMER where "ghoti' is pronounced as "fish".)

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, and mankind,
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, or chalet,
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would,
Viscous, viscount, loud, 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, clamor,
And enamor 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 fouls, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does, now say finger,
And then singer, ginger, and 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 dust, cloth, loth,
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath,
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual but victual,
Refer does not rhyme with deafer,
FEOFFER does with zephyr and 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, mustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed,
Mark the differences, but 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, and 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, and scourging,
Ear but earn and wear and tear,
Do not rhyme with here but ere,
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen and Uncle Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp and cork and work,
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Wait, it makes 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, plow, dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup,
My advice is to give up!

HOW DOES ANYONE LEARN ENGLISH?

IS IT BENEFITED OR BENEFITTED?

One of my careful readers asked why I wrote "benefited" rather than "benefitted" in my BLOG article BENEFITED FROM. She stated that she has always seen it "benefitted".

Click here for explanation from Future Perfect; one can BENEFIT from the website!

GLADYS AND SHIRLEY

After reading my BLOG article "YOU'RE ACTING JUST LIKE", my brother Les said, "You and your brother call each other Gladys when you realize you're acting like Mom."

I said, "But, of course, the difference is, that's US, that's not somebody else saying it!"

He said, "You and Patty call each other Gladys and Shirley when you detect characteristics reminiscent of your mothers." I said, "That's because Patty's LIKE one of us!"

It was indeed a shock when I realized I am JUST LIKE MY MOTHER!

CLOSED CAPTION

I like the series Reign and, although the cast is comprised mostly of actors from the United Kingdom, the enunciation and diction are oftentimes difficult for me to comprehend. When I'm watching a recording of the show, I turn on "closed captions".

Last evening, after watching the program, I neglected to turn off the closed caption feature and when I switched to Late Night With David Letterman, the comedian Andy Kindler was performing.

During his routine, Andy asked, "I believe it was the great philosopher Descartes who said, 'am I right, Ladies?'"

The closed caption followed a few seconds later and it showed: "I believe it was the great philosopher DICK CLARK..........".

Kindler's routine had been moderately amusing, but the closed caption was hilarious!

BENEFITED FROM

At a recent City Council meeting, one of the members, during a reading of a Committee Report, used the phrase "benefited from" 4 different times, and "noted" 3 times. I'm glad he could, on behalf of all the committee members, state that they had "benefited from" a subject, but I think a more appropriate phrase would have been that all the committee members "heard about" the topics. (see definition of "benefited")

At several meetings, another Council member, during his readings of Committee Reports, used the terms Mr. and Mrs. to name each Committee member. I wonder why he thinks it's important to use gender. He is a very slow-speaking individual; I timed his recitation at the last meeting and he could have saved 30 seconds by just listing the names and not using Mr. and Mrs. (No, I don't have anything better to do than time him) Les said, "Maybe he thinks it's respectful; he's probably old-fashioned." I said, "I think he's younger than I."

I have noticed that the Chairperson has commented several times that he likes to get us "out of" the meetings in a timely manner; thus, that would be saving thirty seconds!

From the OED:

benefited
verb
"receive an advantage; profit; gain"

SOME INTERESTING TIDBITS

From LEE RENO


Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

Coca-Cola was originally green.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.

The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.

The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28%

The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $16,400

The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour: 61,000

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer

The San Francisco cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:

Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

111,111,111 x
111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987, 654,321

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died because of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes

Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.