myguideTravel Blog

Ask a wasp to grasp

February 2nd, 2008

To me it never was a wosp, it’s always been a wasp. I was listening to Ray Darcy on Today FM during the the week and Ray had a piece about how the word wasp is pronounced. Ray was trying to impress upon his listeners that he grew up in a family of 11 in Co. Kildare and then proceeded to pronounce the word as if he was schooled in Eton.

All joking aside, this is one of the things that I love, as I travel to our various offices.

• In Boston, the traditional accent is non-rhotic, you don’t hear the “r” at the end of a syllable or just before a consonant. So there is no “r” when you go to pa-k your ka- in Ha-ved
• The Glaswegian Patter as it is affectionately known is certainly the most difficult Scottish accent for a visitor to pick up. IMHO it’s more of a dialect than an accent. Apparently it’s a mix of old Scot’s as spoken by Robert Burns with the accent’s of those who migrated from Ireland, the Highlands & Islands
• In Cardiff, it’s hard to beat the beauty of a Welsh lilt, especially in the female voice. The Welsh are a musical people and there is music in every sentence uttered. I lived for a while in PountyPooeel [Pontypool]. I used to ask ladies on the street for directions - just to hear the music.
• When I am in Kraków, there are a variety of accents. I was recently picked up by a taxi driver who sounded like a Dub. In conversation he told me that he had lived in near Kilmainham Gaol for three years.
• Back home in West Cork, I am sure nobody has accent and we all speak beautiful Hiberno-English

Local Versions

Then of course there is the conundrum of using English pronunciation or the local version. Locals in Poland’s most beautiful city say crack-ov and spell it Kraków whereas in English it has traditionally had a spelling of Cracow and being pronounced cra-cow. However, here in Ireland I am seeing it with the Kraków spelling more and more.

The Chaos

So what is the correct way to pronounce any of these words. Is my wasp really a wosp? Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946) a Dutchman, was one of the the first to recognize that there was no correct way to pronounce any word. Common usage is what drives pronunciation in English. The BBC even have a dedicated unit on the subject.

Nolst Trenite wrote a fantastic poem about English pronunciation called The Chaos. For best effect, read it aloud to a friend, sweetheart or lover. Don’t forget how to pronounce wasp!

The Chaos

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.
Foeffer 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 it up!!!

Have you any regional example’s that you would like to share?

Entry Filed under: Travel