The Chaos

Template:Short description "The Chaos" is a poem demonstrating the irregularity of English spelling and pronunciation. Written by Dutch writer, traveller, and teacher Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870–1946) under the pseudonym of Charivarius, it includes about 800 examples of irregular spelling. The first version of 146 lines of text appeared in an appendix to the author's 1920 textbook Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen, but "the most complete and authoritative version ever likely to emerge", published by the Spelling Society in 1993–94, has 274 lines.

Partial text

These lines are set out as in the author's version, with alternate couplets indented and the problematic words italicised.

Dearest creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation, Template:Block indent It will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy; Template:Block indent Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it? Template:Block indent Sword and sward, retain and Britain,
(Mind the latter, how it's written!) Template:Block indent Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague, Template:Block indent Previous, precious; fuchsia, via;
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir, Template:Block indent Hear me say devoid of trickery,
daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

[...] Template:Block indent Hiccough has the sound of "cup"......
My advice is—give it up!

Dedication

A mimeographed version of the poem in Harry Cohen's possession is dedicated to "Miss Susanne Delacruix, Paris", who is thought to have been one of Nolst Trenité's students. The author addressed her as "dearest creature in creation" in the first line, and later as "Susy" in line 5.

See also

• Ghoti
• "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den"
• Orthography
• English orthography
• English spelling-to-sound correspondences
• Spelling reform
• List of reforms of the English language
• Shavian alphabet

External links

• The Classic Concordance of Cacographic Chaos, Introduced by Chris Upward Text of 274-line version of the poem, with introduction, at The Spelling Society website
• Chaos Challenge project. Interactive application with IPA transcription popping up along with professional narration
• Text with IPA transcription of first 15 verses in British and American English, by David Madore
• Audio-visual of shortened version of "The Chaos": Reading in Canadian accent, with scrolling transcript
• The Chaos at LibriVox - links to several readings
• Concordant Chaos annotated version at the Longest Now, connecting the Spelling Society version with other versions Trenité published over his lifetime.
• Drop Your Foreign Accent (1932)