The Chaos of English Pronunciation

A popular poem by a Dutchman G. Nolst Trenite presenting numerous absurdities of the English letter-to-sound correspondence. The version presented here is a relatively short and lightweight one - try the full one at There are a few stress irregularities and three obvious errors in my rendition - ’transom’ should be pronounced with / s /, not / z /, ’dies’ the other way round and ’doctrine’ should have a short / i /. Still, hope you might find my attem