Holi, also called the Festival of Colours, is a popular Hindu spring festival observed in India, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, the UK, Fiji and Nepal. In West Bengal of India and Bangladesh, it is known as Dolyatra (Doljatra) or Boshonto Utsav (“spring festival”).
Wishing all bloggers a Happy and colorful HOLI 🙂
If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world….
I was able to pronounce pretty much all of the words but, some of them I’ve never even seen before like Hiccough, skein, transom, Melpomene, and balmoral. I used to think I had a pretty good vocabulary but, I guess not, LOL ;p. I’ve honestly never heard of any of these words before so, now I have to look them up to see what they mean and how to say them.
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.
Fe0ffer 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!!!
Whew! This one was a killer and almost tripped me up a few times, but I did it! One goal in life is to memorize and recite this poem one day 🙂
Now we know the real story.
I’m afraid if I share I’ll be struck by lightning. 😉
LOL, can’t stop laughing 😀 🙂 :
I didn’t understand the significance of his resignation till I was told hes only the 2nd pope after 600 years to give up his position.
Everyone else died as pope.
Merry Christmas….
Write a wish here…..
and it will b granted for sure 😀
Wednesday, is one of those magical dates that we’re not going to see again for a while.
Yes, that day is — Say it with us: 12/12/12!
12/12/12 is also the last of the repeating dates until January 1, 2101.
December, 12, 2012 will be the last date of its kind – when all three numerical in a date are the same – for the next 88 years.
The next time this will happen is on January 1, 2101, or 01-01-01.
According to a survey, approximately 7,500 brides will tie the knot on December 12, 2012.
What i think Just make sure you are marrying for the right reasons and that you honor the vows you are making. The date itself means very little in comparison.
Anyways I’m going to bring donuts to work tomorrow. 12-12-12 is as good a day to celebrate, and have donuts…..as you can get. 🙂
Swati Zutshi
If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.
Have a nice day 🙂
Location
North-east of Kashmir valley, 130 kms from Srinagar.
Altitude Around 8000 ft
Ultimate adventure destination to the north of Kashrmir, Gurez, is a gateway to the famous silk route across central Asia. The pyramid shaped peak named after famous Kashmiri poetess Habba Khatoon is most fascinating peak of Kashmir. The emperor Yousuf Shah Chak who is said to be a Dard from Gilgit entered into Kashmir through Gurez. It is believed that when emperor was imprisoned by the King Akbar, his beloved Habba Khafton used to wander near the peak to look for her lover. The roar of mighty Kishan-Ganga river flowing across the valley, resonates with surrounding mountains that lulls a visitors to sound sleep.The traditional log wood houses make Gurez no less than a European country side.
The trekking Routes from Gurez and Tilel lead upto Gangabal and Sonamorg to its east and Drass , and Zanskar to its north.The Kishen Ganga river in Gurez offers easy level of stream for Rafting and tough ones from Tilel. Some of the mountains have absolutely challenging scope for Rock Climbing.Trout fishing is a frequent sport among locals.The road from Gurez to Tilel is just 7 years old, which has been extended upto Drass in Kargil region….
Prior to the Partition of Kashmir, Gurais had been a popular destination for foreign tourists, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who is known to have visited some time before he became the US president. During the colonial period, Gurais was often visited by trekkers. Nehru and Indira Gandhi, accompanied by Sheikh Abdullah, were among those who visited the area in the 1940’s, fishing for trout at Naranag, one of the lakes in the mountains above the valley.
This was a brief overview and some history of this magnificent
Gurez Valley……
People say the hardest part about meditating is finding the time to meditate. This makes sense: who these days has time to do nothing? It’s hard to justify..
Meditation brings many benefits: It refreshes us, helps us settle into what’s happening now, makes us wiser and gentler, helps us cope in a world that overloads us with information and communication, and more. But if you’re still looking for a business case to justify spending time meditating, try this one: Meditation makes you more productive.
How? By increasing your capacity to resist distracting urges.
Research shows that an ability to resist urges will improve your relationships, increase your dependability, and raise your performance. If you can resist your urges, you can make better, more thoughtful decisions. You can be more intentional about what you say and how you say it. You can think about the outcome of your actions before following through on them.
Our ability to resist an impulse determines our success in learning a new behavior or changing an old habit. It’s probably the single most important skill for our growth and development.
As it turns out, that’s one of the things meditation teaches us. It’s also one of the hardest to learn.
When I sat down to meditate this morning, relaxing a little more with each out-breath, I was successful in letting all my concerns drift away. My mind was truly empty of everything that had concerned it before I sat. Everything except the flow of my breath. My body felt blissful and I was at peace.
For about four seconds
Within a breath or two of emptying my mind, thoughts came flooding in — I felt an itch on my face and wanted to scratch it. A great title for my next picture popped into my head and I wanted to write it down before I forgot it.
I thought of at least four phone calls I wanted to make and one difficult conversation I was going to have later that day. I became anxious, knowing I only had a few hours of writing time. What was I doing just sitting here? I wanted to open my eyes and look at how much time was left on my countdown timer. I heard my siblings fighting in the other room and wanted to intervene.
Here’s the key though: I wanted to do all those things, but I didn’t do them. Instead, every time I had one of those thoughts, I brought my attention back to my breath.
Meditation teaches us to resist the urge of that counterproductive follow through.
For example, when an employee makes a mistake and you want to yell at him even though you know that it’s better — for him and for the morale of the group — to ask some questions and discuss it gently and rationally. Or when you want to blurt something out in a meeting but know you’d be better off listening. Or when you want to buy or sell a stock based on your emotions when the fundamentals and your research suggest a different action. Or when you want to check email every three minutes instead of focusing on the task at hand.
Meditating daily will strengthen your willpower muscle. Your urges won’t disappear, but you will be better equipped to manage them. And you will have experience that proves to you that the urge is only a suggestion. You are in control.
So how do you do it? If you’re just starting, keep it very simple.
Sit with your back straight enough that your breathing is comfortable — on a chair or a cushion on the floor — and set a timer for however many minutes you want to meditate. Once you start the timer, close your eyes, relax, and don’t move except to breathe, until the timer goes off. Focus on your breath going in and out. Every time you have a thought or an urge, notice it and bring yourself back to your breath.
That’s it. Simple but challenging. Try it — today — for five minutes. And then try it again tomorrow.
Who says meditation is a waste of time?
So if you like the idea of meeting yourself then you can fix an appointment in the morning at 5 or 6 as per your convenience. 😉
Do Try and share the experience 🙂
“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” ~~ Allen Klein
Dawn to Dusk 