Facscimiles uit De Groene
Charivarius
10 pagina's
E-book van Hetvrijevers.nl
Vandaag is de 139e geboortedag van Charivarius, schuilnaam van Gerard Nolst Trenité (20 juli 1870 – 9 oktober 1946) en daar staan we natuurlijk even bij stil.
Charivarius (de naam is waarschijnlijk ontleend aan het Franse satirische tijdschrift Le Charivari) streed in zijn taalrubriek in De Groene jarenlang voor een zuiver taalgebruik en bond vooral de strijd aan met germanismen en stijlfouten als, zoals hij het noemde en nog steeds genoemd wordt, het Tante Betje (“Met ons gaat alles goed en hopen van u hetzelfde”).
Van 1903 tot 1940 schreef hij in De Groene zijn taalrubriek en zijn Ruize-rijmen, waarin hij niet alleen taalkundige verschijnselen op de hak nam, maar in de 1e Wereldoorlog ook vurig stelling nam tegen ieder die de oorlog verheerlijkte. Zijn boekje Is dat goed Nederlands? werd in 1998 nog herdrukt en van zijn 4 bundels Ruize-rijmen uit 1914-1917 verscheen enkele jaren terug nog een selectie. Verder schreef hij toneelstukken en schoolboeken.
Zijn Engelstalige gedicht over de struikelblokken in deze taal wat uitspraak betreft, geniet ook in Engeland bekendheid. Als hommage aan deze man drukken we het hier af en als u hier klikt, ziet u in een soort mini E-book een aantal facsimile van zijn rubriek in De Groene.
The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation
Studying 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 you’ll tear.
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
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).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague.
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, toe.
Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly; signal, signing;
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
Desire – desirable, admirable - admire;
Lumber, plumber, bier but brier;
Topsham, brougham, renown but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind;
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed.
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation’s OK
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve.
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?
Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortuous,
You’ll envelop lists, I hope
In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You’ll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library; heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache; eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed;
People, leopard; towed but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches; wise, precise,
Chalice but police and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple; label.
Petal. Penal and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit
Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”.
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular; goal, iron;
Timber, climber; bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with “hammer”.
Pussy, hussy and possess.
Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance; lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
“Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker’,
Quoth he, ‘then liqueur or liquor”,
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt but aunt,
Font, front, won’t, want, grand and grant,
Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.
And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties) but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure, trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,
Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don’t mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them; Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No.Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.
But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you’re not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.
Please don’t monkey with the geyser,
Don’t peel ‘taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.
The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget ‘em –
Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.
The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight – you see it:
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
Then say; singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage and age.
Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puigne, truism, use, to use?
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut, granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late.
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
Gaelic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four.
Gas, alas and Arkansas,
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it.
Bona fide, alibi,
Gyrate, dowry and awry.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Sally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess – it is not safe;
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary.
Crevice but device and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging;
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
Pudding, puddle; putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk.
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
Pronunciation – think of Psyche! -
Is a paling stout and spiky.
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying “grits”?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Don’t you think so, reader, rather
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rhymes with “enough”:
Though, through, plough, bough, cough, hough, sough or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of “cup”...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
