英语是一种非常“狡猾”的语言，有的字母在单词中不发音，有的字母组合没有固定发音，有时单词发音甚至没有明显的规律可言。

最近，一首旨在检测说英语者语言技巧的诗歌在网上走红，由荷兰诗人Gerard Nolst Trenité创作于1922年，他宣称，只有一个真正的英国人才能正确读出这首绕口令中的全部单词。这首长诗向人们展示了单词拼写与发音之间的复杂关系。下面，就请读者们亲自读读这首诗——THE CHAOS。

THE CHAOS (ABRIDGED)

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.

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.)

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.