Dearest creature in creation
Studying 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.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
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.
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,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From “desire”: desirable–admirable from “admire,”
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
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?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
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,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
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,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,
Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it,”
But it is not hard to tell
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.
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,”
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.
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.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ’taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
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.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget ‘em—
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.
The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight—you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does.* Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
*No, you are wrong. This is the plural of doe.
Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite.
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;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
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.
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.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
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.
Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
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),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
Pronunciation—think of Psyche!—
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying “grits”?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don’t you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup…
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité was a Dutch writer and teacher also known as Charivarius. The first published version of The Chaos appeared in an appendix to the 1920 edition of his English pronunciation textbook, Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen. He would continue to add onto the poem for many years. The 1932 edition of Drop Your Foreign Accent can be found on Wikimedia Commons. In Nolst Trenité’s introduction to the book, he rather humbly describes the poem as “a small collection of phonetical paradoxes.”
The version of the poem on this page is a reprinting of the version published in the Journal of the Simplified Spelling Society in 1994, introduced by Chris Upward as “the most complete and authoritative version ever likely to emerge.” Most versions of the poem found on the web can be traced back to that source. The SSS is thus largely responsible for the online spread of The Chaos and its continued cultural presence in the 21st century. They are also responsible for most of the readily accessible information about the poem and its history. I am very grateful to Upward and the SSS for their efforts.
Upward describes the JSSS version as “essentially the author’s own final text,” but also notes the presence of some “minor corrections” and the privileging of certain words from earlier editions over later ones. The exact nature of these edits is not given, but it is safe to assume that the text here differs, at least slightly, from any particular version ever published by Nolst Trenité. My own edits for this page have been entirely typographical; no words have been changed from the JSSS version.
The poem itself is written to a student of English pronunciation, perhaps to a particular “Susy.” It displays the many irregularities of English orthography, and the impossibility of consistently deriving pronunciation from spelling in English. Reading the poem aloud presents a challenge to learners and fluent speakers alike. Still, the structure of the text is helpful (perhaps even educational): couplets will often show the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word by rhyming it with a more common one, and contrasts between familiar pairs can illustrate the same contrasts in unfamiliar pairs. This was intentional on Nolst Trenité’s part, who wrote that he gave it a poetic form so “that rhyme and rhythm might have a soothing effect on the bewildered learner, and lead him into the right path.”
Because language is by nature fluid and evolving, today’s readers will likely find that some parts of the poem hold up better than others. Certainly the context in which it was written, both in time and location, contribute to this. Upward notes the “somewhat dated” character of some examples used, and the obscurity of certain terms. For my own part, my 21st-century American accent renders certain intended rhymes awkward, puzzling, or downright impossible. “Parquet” with “khaki”? “Paws” with “yours”? Nolst Trenité also makes relatively heavy use of proper nouns, particularly the names of British people, places, and geographical features. Most of these will probably be unfamiliar to non-Brits, though perhaps no more unfamiliar than they would have been to the author’s intended audience of Dutch students learning English.
As I write this, it has been over a century since Gerard Nolst Trenité published the first version of The Chaos, and over thirty years since the Simplified Spelling Society published the now-definitive version. Though its age is sometimes apparent in the text, I think The Chaos has proven itself timeless. It continues to resonate as a lengthy yet good-spirited ribbing of the English language.
As for the exhortation to “GIVE IT UP,” Nolst Trenité says: “The last line contains an advice; my advice is—don’t take it.”
I created this site because I felt that there was not yet an easily searchable webpage that gave this poem an appropriate visual presentation. This page is an exercise in web typography. I am not a web developer or a professional typographer, but I do greatly appreciate The Chaos. I believe that any difficulty in reading the poem should come only from the challenge of the text itself, not from its presentation.
In producing this page, I have paid significant attention to readability, visual clarity, and aesthetics. If I have at all succeeded, I owe a debt of gratitude to Matthew Butterick and his book, Practical Typography, which was an invaluable resource for the design of this page. I also owe thanks to Blue Ryan for helping me learn how to write the HTML and CSS to design this page.
In the design of this page, I have departed from certain stylistic choices that are common in other presentations of The Chaos. For instance, the JSSS version, following Nolst Trenité, italicizes words whose spellings or pronunciations clash. I find this an unappealing and ineffective choice for a poem that is largely composed of clashing words. I prefer to let the text speak for itself. Similarly, where other sources use indentation to visually differentiate couplets within a stanza, I have elected to use color for that purpose and maintain consistency in line flow. I have also made other small, typographical changes.
I consider this site a living project. I have no particular timeline for future updates, but there is more I would like to add, including phonetic transcriptions of difficult words and annotations relating to certain lines of the poem.
If you have read The Chaos on another website, you may have noticed the asterisk present in the line:
Shoes, goes, does*. Now first say: finger;
You may then have been puzzled to find that this asterisk does not seem to have a corresponding footnote. This phantom asterisk can be found on a number of webpages presenting the poem. It is the result of careless copying. The asterisk appears in the 1994 JSSS version of the poem, where it leads to a footnote reading:
*No, you're wrong. This is the plural of doe.
Several webpages hosting the poem include the asterisk but omit the note. I initially omitted the asterisk and the note from this page. However, once I discovered that a version of this note appears in the 1932 edition of Drop Your Foreign Accent, I added it to the site.