Hi Jennifer,
I love your poem. It's a wonderful help in
exercising pronunciation just by reference to the meter
and what a beautiful illustration of the richness of the
English language. Such a shame we don't know the author!
For me a rhyme of 'thorough' with 'burrow'
or 'furrow' highlights the problem. I base my observations on
CNN, Fox as well as Discovery and National Geographic.
Australian English and I think "Standard" English would rhyme
more with "burra" and 'furra". My feeling is that in attempting
to do justice to the spelling of the word, some users, news
readers in particular, create verbal nightmares. This could carry
across into singing also where we hear undue stress on
words endings.
A rhyme with 'burrow' strikes me as an attempt to
feel good about having accommodated the spelling of the
'ough' part of 'thorough', in which case I'd have to ask you
how you pronounce 'rough'. : ) "Ruff", I hope?
I'd also suggest that your particular rhyme with 'burrow'
does in fact attempt to pronounce the "gh".
While we're here, the "ing" ending is another
example. I feel we have all heard the two problems. One of
undue emphasis and the other of a totally missing "G", but
what about the other tendency of pronouncing it as "eene".
"One morning by the break of day the youthful charming Chloe.."
This line can only succeed with a present but unstressed
handling of 'ing' and yet every day I hear news readers cummene
and goeene as if it was the accepted form while in the next sentence
we'll find a 'thu -rrou-ggh instead of 'thurra'.
Sorry but hearing about how the Electoral College represents the
"more worthy voters" was just too much.
Reg.
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