The English Language
Multi-national personnel at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris found English to be an easy language... until they tried to pronounce it. To help them discard an array of accents, the verses below were devised. After trying them, a Frenchman said he'd prefer six months at hard labor to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself.

 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 up!!!

 Author Unknown

 1. What language is spoken in France?

 2. Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social conditions -OR- give the first name of Pierre  Trudeau.

 3. Would you ask William Shakespeare to
 (a) build a bridge
 (b) sail the ocean
 (c) lead an army or
 (d) WRITE A PLAY

 4. What religion is the Pope?
 (a) Jewish
 (b) Catholic
 (c) Hindu
 (d) Polish
 (e) Agnostic (check only one)

 5. Metric conversion. How many feet in 0.0 meters?

 6. What time is it when the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 5?

 7. How many commandments was Moses given? (approximately)

 8. What are people in America's far north called?
 (a) Westerners
 (b) Southerners
 (c) Northerners

 9. Spell -- Bush, Carter and Clinton

 10. Six kings of England have been called George, the last one being George the Sixth. Name the previous five.

 11. Where does rain come from?
 (a) Macy's
 (b) a 7-11
 (c) Canada
 (d) the sky

 12. Can you explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity?
 (a) yes
 (b) no

 13. What are coat hangers used for?

 14. The Star Spangled Banner is the National Anthem for what country?

 15. Explain Le Chateliers Principle of Dynamic Equilibrium -OR- spell your name in BLOCK LETTERS.

 16. Where is the basement in a three story building located?

 17. Which part of America produces the most oranges?
 (a) New York
 (b) Florida
 (c) Canada
 (d) Wisconsin

 18. Advanced math. If you have three apples how many apples do you have?

 19. What does NBC (National Broadcasting Corp) stand for?