English Anguish

Let’s talk about poetry. I am with my second Racket in the lucrative and oh so exclusive (excrutive? Yeah, I think so…) industry of online English language tutoring. Trafficking in digraphs, verb tenses and “say this, not that”, I conjured a free-flowing limerick about the language we share that you are now reading with your eyeballs. Now direct the orbs nestled so snugly into the top half of that oval-shaped mass that gives your neck a purpose to the following words. Once you have finished, share this with others that they might have a wordgasm like the one you are about to experience.

“English Anguish”

Oh, Alphabet! Thy name is “deceit”.

With twenty-six letters, but replete

With an array of forty-four sounds.

A formula that only confounds

Any logical approach to learn,

Speak, write, and accurately discern

A language that’s so convoluted;

So conspicuously diluted

By letters, whose pronunciation

Often depend on the location.

I am the letter ‘c’,

Pronounced like “see”, or “sea”.

“Kuh” I say, when just me.

That’s not all, I make the

‘S’ sound, when placed fore ‘e’,

“Nice” is a word with the

Outspoken subtlety.

Coupled with ‘h’, you’ll see

Everything is “peachy”.

Unless we feel achy;

We’ll drink some nice Chablis.

And so, ultimately

There’s much more to ‘c’.

Heedless and haughty;

‘H’ heaps huge headaches

Upon hardworking

Half-pints who have hours,

HOURS of homework.

How have they headspace

For hefty helpings

Of all the lofty high

heuristic hurdles

While still heeding

the hushed ‘g’ hiding,

Not heard before ‘h’,

As in “high” or “height”?

How has humble ‘h’,

That harmless eighth sign,

Held the letter ‘s’.

Hatching a shound that

Should shurely shignal

Shtudents of English

To shteel themshelves for

Shtrenuoush shentence

Shtructuresh, and shtrange

New Shoundsh? No no! But wait!

Treacherous ‘h’ will mate

With letter “tuh tuh” ‘t’,

Producing a fairly

Complicated sound which

Will leave the tongue ‘astitch

To the speaker’s mouth’s roof.

The digraph ‘th’ is proof,

The study of English,

Is not for the squeamish.

Surely, ‘h’s antics tricks here end?

Tis not to be.

Paired with ‘p’…

…will sound like ‘f’ in friend.

How is it so

That ‘f’ may go

Defend, but may not “dephend”

Its very name,

In this word game,

From this phabricated blend?

“Fonics” sounds right

Yet upon sight,

Such a spelling would offend

The logophile

Nay, “logofile”

And be hard to comprehend.

‘P’s mischief persists,

With ‘s’ to assist.

Think “psychiatrist”.

These sounds you will find

So stringently confined,

In the learner’s ailing mind.

DigraPHs are nutty,

For THose WHo don’t study.

WHere is your study buddy?

That is how we make

Twenty-six letters take

On forty-four sounds when spake

FIN

@JarrettLWilson