Listen, words have become more than a passion for me. Back in November twenty ought sixteen, I started tutoring Chinese kids in the rigidly promiscuous tongue we call English. I always knew that the language was temperamental, but now I have first-hand experience with the treachery of this tyrannical verbal transmission medium.

I’ve since learned that, even with only 26 letters, this diabolical series of tones we make with our face holes, produces 44 distinct sounds. Indeed, that is a 70% increase in the number of sounds one would expect to hear from speech composed of phonemes.

This would be something like going to a restaurant, ordering a cheeseburger, fries, coke and a bowl of ice cream for dessert, getting charged for the food items AND the flavor combinations they make. For example,

man at register paying for food

“CSS trio? I didn’t order that! $9?!?

Shit eating kid behind the register yawns. “You actually ordered a lot of that sir, the Cheesy Salt Sugar Trio is one of our most popular combinations.”

…

I digress – point is, with the English language, learners get so much more than they bargained for. In my opinion as a purveyor of English verbiage, I say the letter ‘c’ is the most egregious offender –

I am the letter ‘c’

Pronounced like “see”.

“Kuh” I say, when just me.

I can also be

Like ‘s’, if before ‘e’,

“Nice” shows off the

Pronunciation subtlety.

Join ‘h’, then we

Make everything “peachy”.

Unless we’re achy;

We’ll chill with some Chablis

As you can see,

There’s so much more to me.

Heedless and haughty;

‘H’ heaps heinous headaches

Upon hardworking

Half-pints who have

Hours of homework.

How have they headspace for

Hefty helpings

Of heuristically onerous happenings

To harken the ‘g’ hidden

By an ‘h’ and not heard,

Think “high” or “height”.

How has ‘h’, so harmless

and humble had

Hold of ‘s’ hatching a

Shound that should shurely

Sherve as a shignal for English

Shtudents to shteel

Themshelves for shtrenuous shentence

Shtructures and shtrange

New Shounds? But wait

‘H’ only continues to frustrate.

In league with ‘t’,

‘H’ Makes a sound the

Likes of which

Will leave your tongue ‘astitch

To your mouth’s roof.

The digraph ‘th’ is proof,

Learning English,

Is not for the squeamish.

Surely, ‘h’s antics here end?

Tis not to be

There’s still ‘p’…

…‘h’ to sound as ‘f’ in friend.

Is ‘f’ insufficiently

Built to handle the…

Sound for its very name?

No, there are words

Which ‘f’ aphords

A piece of its word game.

But, why is it

“phonics” isn’t phit

For a simpler spelling,

With ‘f’ to start?

Did you just phart?

I phind it compelling,

That ‘ph’ and ‘f’ be

Of one phamily.

‘P’s mischief persists,

With ‘s’ to assist.

Psychiatrists?

There are many more,

I won’t hit them all right now,

But here are a few –

What about digraphs?

Why, there are a lot of those.

Where are they, you ask?

When you’ve a query,

Such as – Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Trust ‘wh’ to guide you.

Here is an example –

When should a blog be finished?

How about right now?

FIN

@JarrettLWilson

I’ve since learned that, even with only 26 letters, this diabolical series of tones we make with our face holes, produces 44 distinct sounds. Indeed, that is a 70% increase in the number of sounds one would expect to hear from speech composed of phonemes.

This would be something like going to a restaurant, ordering a cheeseburger, fries, coke and a bowl of ice cream for dessert, getting charged for the food items AND the flavor combinations they make. For example,

*man at register paying for food*

“CSS trio? I didn’t order that! $9?!?

Shit eating kid behind the register yawns. “You actually ordered a lot of that sir, the Cheesy Salt Sugar Trio is one of our most popular combinations.”

…

I digress – point is, with the English language, learners get so much more than they bargained for. In my opinion as a purveyor of English verbiage, I say the letter ‘c’ is the most egregious offender –

I am the letter ‘c’

Pronounced like “see”.

“Kuh” I say, when just me.

I can also be

Like ‘s’, if before ‘e’,

“Nice” shows off the

Pronunciation subtlety.

Join ‘h’, then we

Make everything “peachy”.

Unless we’re achy;

We’ll chill with some Chablis

As you can see,

There’s so much more to me.

Heedless and haughty;

‘H’ heaps heinous headaches

Upon hardworking

Half-pints who have

Hours of homework.

How have they headspace for

Hefty helpings

Of heuristically onerous happenings

To harken the ‘g’ hidden

By an ‘h’ and not heard,

Think “high” or “height”.

How has ‘h’, so harmless

and humble had

Hold of ‘s’ hatching a

Shound that should shurely

Sherve as a shignal for English

Shtudents to shteel

Themshelves for shtrenuous shentence

Shtructures and shtrange

New Shounds? But wait

‘H’ only continues to frustrate.

In league with ‘t’,

‘H’ Makes a sound the

Likes of which

Will leave your tongue ‘astitch

To your mouth’s roof.

The digraph ‘th’ is proof,

Learning English,

Is not for the squeamish.

Surely, ‘h’s antics here end?

Tis not to be

There’s still ‘p’…

…‘h’ to sound as ‘f’ in friend.

Is ‘f’ insufficiently

Built to handle the…

Sound for its very name?

No, there are words

Which ‘f’ aphords

A piece of its word game.

But, why is it

“phonics” isn’t phit

For a simpler spelling,

With ‘f’ to start?

Did you just phart?

I phind it compelling,

That ‘ph’ and ‘f’ be

Of one phamily.

‘P’s mischief persists,

With ‘s’ to assist.

Psychiatrists?

There are many more,

I won’t hit them all right now,

But here are a few –

What about digraphs?

Why, there are a lot of those.

Where are they, you ask?

When you’ve a query,

Such as – Who? What? Where? When? Why?

Trust ‘wh’ to guide you.

Here is an example –

man at register paying for food