English Pronunciation

via The Poke:

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.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

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.
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

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Good morning, universe! :D
This morning I stumbled across something funny on the internet.
Do you know the quote, 'When life gives you lemons, make lemonade'?
Well, it seems that the quote can be twisted in so many other ways! hhas :p
I'll share with you some of the best that I found. Let's start!

If life gives you lemons, ask for the receipt so you can exchange them for oranges.

If life gives you lemons, ask why it can't give you money instead?

If life gives you lemons, grow a lemon tree. When that tree gives you more lemons, make a lemon orchard. When that orchard gives you more lemons, sell them and become rich. Then next time you see life, you can say, “Thanks for the lemons!” Life hates people who are grateful for its lemons.

If life gives you lemons, throw them at life and see if life will make the same mistake again.

If life hands you lemons, take a permanent marker, write “pass it on” on each one, and mail them to complete strangers.

If life hands you lemons, throw them back and yell “I WANTED CHOCOLATE!”

When life give you lemons, eat them, they are good for you – life knows best.

When life gives you lemons eat them as fast as possible and get huge bragging rights.

When life gives you lemons, ask yourself how exactly an anthropomorphic personification of something immaterial like life can give you a fruit.

When life gives you lemons, do what we all do with unwanted gifts: Thank the giver, then regift it to someone else.

When life gives you lemons, dress up like life and hand them on to someone else.

When life gives you lemons, fake a british accent and say, “Please, sir! May I have some more?”

When life hands you lemons, blame Adam and Eve for eating all the good fruit.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Then, find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party!

Hhas some of them are really funny, no? :D
And here is my favorite, well it's more motivational than funny I guess, but still:

When life gives you lemons, go make grape juice and let people wonder how.

Save a Life

Life Lover and Culture Curious

I just did a personality test on New York Times. Twice to be exact; in the second one, I change some of the answers with my other preferences for the same questions (since I like a lot of things!). And according to the result, I am a Life Lover and a Culture Curious :D

Congratulations, you are a Life Lover!
You are a warm and positive person who has a kind, nurturing disposition that people are often drawn to. Fiercely loyal to both friends and family you can see beauty where others often can't. When all is said and done, you are a bit of an intellect with a tendency to do a spot of soul searching from time to time.
You're creative and imaginative and like to be inspired. Home is where your heart is and you love nothing more than putting personal touches to your space. You're laid-back and relaxed with a very healthy attitude to life. Naturally down-to-earth, you don't believe in sweating the small stuff. Life's for living, with minimum stress and maximum enjoyment and so fun with family and friends is top of the list as far as you're concerned. Food is a definite passion too and you're always up for tantalizing your taste buds. You're a bit of a dreamer at heart. But there's nothing wrong with that. Set your sights high and you'll create the life you deserve.


Congratulations, you are a Culture Curious!
You have an innate ability to see beauty and creativity in all corners of life. With a warm nature and strong family values, you manage to perfectly juggle being culturally aware with keeping grounded and down to earth. When all is said and done, you are a bit of an intellect with a tendency to do a spot of soul searching from time to time.
You're sophisticated and inquisitive with a real passion for art and culture. You pride yourself on being an early adopter of the latest music and films and always like to have a good book on the go. Your ability to bring together very diverse and even dissenting opinions is rooted in your appreciation for all points of view. You believe in immersing yourself in interesting experiences that make you look at people, places and opportunities from new angles. Being sensitive and creative you want to feel connected to the world around you and actively seek out opportunities to explore it. It's all about broadening your horizons and living life to the full. Anything else would not fulfill your curious nature.

Tumblr

I like visiting Tumblr. It contains quite amazing stuffs. These two are one of them:

FIRST, Etiquette for a Gentleman














and, SECOND, Etiquette for A Lady

Which One is Darker?

via 1000notes:

Which gray box is darker?
Maybe you think that it’s the top one, but you’re wrong. They have the same color. Try covering the line between them. You’ll see.

(Nat-Geo)

I bet your finger is on the monitor right now! :p
A fun TV show from National Geographic, Test Your Brain. (; I got pretty amazing and interesting stuffs from here hhas

Shark Attack!

via Penelope the Pembroke


AW CUTE! I miss my dogs ):