Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Was this written by an Englishman or an American?  I thought English,
    judging by all the English place names, until I came across "groats".
    If, as the rhyme implies, it's pronounced "grits", then that solves
    a puzzle for me - I always wondered what "grits" were.  Porridge,
    right?
    
    Also the poet could have added Gillingham and Gillingham.  One's
    in Dorset and the other in Kent.  One is pronounced with a hard
    'G', the other like 'J', though I'm not sure which way round :-)
    
    Jeff.

re .-1

>    Was this written by an Englishman or an American?  I thought English,
>    judging by all the English place names, until I came across "groats".

I'm a bit hazy on the origin. The person who I got from said it was originally
published in Punch a long time ago (turn of the century?) The note says
it was written by Charivarius, a Dutchman. Perhaps he was an American immigrant
who just had enough of learning this new language for the New World.

I love the interactions of spelling and pronunciation - it doesn't work
properly if you read it silently, and it doesn't work properly if you only hear
it without reading the text. It also changes depending on your regional
accent/dialect. What do the Aussies make of it?

Can anyone make up any more lines following the same theme?

	Cheers
		Steve 

   Very nice.  I'd like to pass it around to friends, but there are some
   lines ... uhh  _about which_ I have questions, (can't be too careful in
   this file), and I'd like to be able to substantiate all pronunciations.
   I may have misinterpreted some of these.

>  Banquet is not nearly parquet,
>  Which is said to rhyme with darky.
   Sorry, I don't know "dar-KAY".  (Or is it "PAR-kee"?)

>  Wait,  surmise,  plait,  promise,  pal.
   Am I to assume "plait" does NOT rhyme with "wait"?

>  But it is not hard to tell
>  why it is pall,  mall,  but Pall Mall.
   Does "Pall Mall" sound the same as "pell-mell" (disorderly haste)?

>  Shows,  goes,  does. Now first say:  finger,
>  And then:  singer,  signor,  linger.
   Am I to assume "singer" does not rhyme with "finger"?

>  Phlegm,  phlegmatic;  ass,  glass,  bass;
   Does this read "arse, glass, base"?

>  Monkey,  donkey;  clerk and jerk;
>  Asp,  grasp;  and cork and work.
   "Clerk" and "jerk" rhyme for me; as do "asp" and "grasp".

>  Finally:  which rhymes with "enough"
>  Though,  through,  plough,  cough,  hough,  or tough,
   My dictionaries don't have "hough".  Meaning and pronunciation, please?

Here we go. I'll give you interpretation of the pronunctiations.

SET DIALECT/REGION=SOUTH_EAST_ENGLAND

>  Banquet is not nearly parquet,
>  Which is said to rhyme with darky.
	I would say PARKAY, but the rhyme indicates PARKEE. So go with it.


>  Wait,  surmise,  plait,  promise,  pal.

	plait pronounce PLATT


>  But it is not hard to tell
>  why it is pall,  mall,  but Pall Mall.

   pall sounds like PAWL, mall like MAWL, but "Pall Mall" both rhyme with
   'SHALL"

>  Shows,  goes,  does. Now first say:  finger,
>  And then:  singer,  signor,  linger.

   Am I to assume "singer" does not rhyme with "finger"?
   the NG in singer is combined. In finger you separate the letters FIN-GER

>  Phlegm,  phlegmatic;  ass,  glass,  bass;

   ass rhymes with 'LASS', glass sounds something like 'GLARSE', and 
   bass sounds like 'BASE'
   

>  Monkey,  donkey;  clerk and jerk;
>  Asp,  grasp;  and cork and work.

   Clerk is pronounced 'CLARK', jerk - as you would expect (?)
   Asp has a short 'a' (like in 'as'). Grasp has a long 'a' so is something
   like 'Grarsp'

>  Finally:  which rhymes with "enough"
>  Though,  through,  plough,  cough,  hough,  or tough,

    HOUGH (hok) - n. joint of hind leg between true knee and fetlock.

Whew! That'll do for now. Please feel free to show it around.

	Cheers
			Steve

               I don't know if this is relevant but the original
               title of Punch was:-
    
                     "Punch or The London Chiarivari"
    
               Chiarivari is old Italian and means bright things 
               it was used in the 1800's in magazines as a heading
               for the joke or funny story section.
               Who knows maybe that's where Lites, which they use
               in the AP news for this sort of thing came from.
    
               Chiarivarius could just have been the pseudonym of
               a Punch contributor as very few of them wrote under
               their real names.
    
               It doesn't explain me groats as grits though since                     
               I've always heard it pronounced as in "John O' Groats".
               
               Just because it comes from Punch doesn't necessarily
               mean that it was written by an Englishman.
    
               I've got a book published sometime in the 1880's which
               is the collected contributions to Punch of Mark Twain
               and Oliver Wendel Holmes who wrote under the name of
               Artemus Ward.
    
                                                 Max         
                     

    I think that in Certain Circles `Pall Mall' _did_ rhyme with
    `pell mell' once.
    
    b

               Re .6
               Yes I seemed to remember that as well but I wasn't
               sure.
               Pronunciation can change drastically in a 100 years
               or so and particularly if it comes from Punch there
               could be jokes on, the then, current "in" way of
               pronouncing certain words by young men about town
               or "mashers" as they were called in the 80's.
    
               I remember a line from Pope, "The Rape of the Lock"
               I think, which referred to Queen Anne;
    
        "Great Anne who sometimes counsel takes and sometimes tea."
    
               The line which ryhmed with this showed that tea had
               to be pronounced "tay" which according to our prof.
               was the Standard English pronunciation in the 18th
               century although already by the end of the 19th it
               was considered dialect, particularly Irish.
    
         BTW potted hough is a delicacy in Scotland where it is pronounced
         hoch with the ch back in the throat as in loch.
    
                         Max                                            
    

Early in the 1970s, the following piece appeared in Punch. It was written by
an acquaintance of mine who came to a rather embarrassing end several years
later when he died of a heart attack in bed with somebody else's wife. I'd
been looking for it for some time, and only just found it, but the photocopy
had faded so badly as to to be almost indecipherable except with an electron
microscope. It relates to the opening of the stretch of the M4 that passes
by the Reading area (within 1/4 mile of DECPark) and should be narrated in
a Berkshire accent.


	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*


		He'm got a Nazi 'elmet,
		He'm got an Iron Cross,
		He'm come down orf the bypass,
		And had me in the gorse.
		I knew he were a German
		(He had this furrin leer!)
		I never knew they'd won the war;
		We'm don't 'ear nothing here,

		For it's ho hum po and fargle,
		There bain't no virgins more.
		Who'd be an unspoilt maiden,
		Close by the new M4?

		He'm drive a Ford Cortina,
		A 1600 E,
		He'm travelling in pencils,
		But Thursdays he's with me.
		He knows a little lay-by
		(He'm got reclining seats!)
		He'm ever such a gentleman,
		He allus gives me sweets.

		For it's ho hum po and fargle,
		There bain't no virgins more.
		Who'd be an unspoilt maiden,
		Close by the new M4?

		He'm called a Young Execkertive,
		He'm got a kipper tie,
		He's allus going down to Wales,
		An' droppin' in on I.
		He takes me to the Dog and Duck
		(It's all been done up now)
		And once a week I'm Mrs Smith,
		Or Jones if it's the Plough.

		For it's ho hum po and fargle,
		There bain't no virgins more.
		Who'd be an unspoilt maiden,
		Close by the new M4?

		He'm drive a a twelve wheel lorry,
		From Newport to The Smoke,
		And sometime he'm got cabbages,
		And sometime he'm got coke.
		He'm drive up 'ere at ninety
		(Just so he'm got some slack)
		And in that spare arf hour,
		We do it in the back.

		For it's ho hum po and fargle,
		There bain't no virgins more.
		Who'd be an unspoilt maiden,
		Close by the new M4?

		But there be one what loves me,
		He'm be a village lad,
		And he'm go red and stammer,
		And he'm go pale and sad.
		But what the use him trying
		To get a meeting on?
		He'm only got a push-bike,
		And when he'm come I've gone.

		For it's ho hum po and fargle,
		There bain't no virgins more.
		Who'd be an unspoilt maiden,
		Close by the new M4?

    Re .6:
    
    >I think that in Certain Circles `Pall Mall' _did_ rhyme with
    >`pell mell' once.   
    
    Certainly in the U.S.  In the early days of television, there were
    a lot of cigarette commercials, and one waa for the Pall Mall brand.
    The commercial's announcers (and singing chorus) pronounced the
    cigarettes' name as "Pell Mell."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    When I last read "Punch" (around 20 years ago), the by-line on the
    back-page humo(u)r column was, I believe, "Charivarius".
    
    -dave

    Re. a few replies back:
    
    Fishermen would rhyme "bass" with "lass", rather than "base".
    
    Pall Mall would be pronounced "pell mell" by someone affecting a
    mock "toffee-nosed" upper class English accent ("travelling dine
    pell mell"). And only the *very* pretentious still pronounce "mall"
    as "mawl" in England.

    Andy

    Re .5
    
    Artemus Ward was the pen name of Charles Farrar Browne, not Oliver
    Wendell Holmes.
    

    Re. .11
    
>    Fishermen would rhyme "bass" with "lass", rather than "base".
    
     Certainly they would, but the rhyme is with 'efface', so the musical
     interpretation of 'bass' is the one which is appropriate, not the fishy
     one.
     
     Similarly the rhyme for 'Pall Mall' is 'tell', which gives support
     to the pompous 'Pell Mell' pronunciation. Ick.
     
     
     Steve

Article: 18628
From: [email protected] (Graham S. Newlove)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: CHAOS - a poem
Date: 22 Jul 1993 19:09:52 GMT
Organization: Youngstown State/Youngstown Free-Net
 
[intervening text deleted by RIK]
     
The Chaos (by G. Nolst Treniti, a.k.a. "Charivarius"; 1870 - 1946)
 
    Dearest creature in creation
  Studying English pronunciation,
    
[remaining text deleted by RIK]