"The Chaos!" - A poem about English by Gerard N. Trenite - American English Pronunciation

that is? great

In fast, natural speech, 'poem' is pronounced as one syllable /?po?m/. Sometimes you'll hear? people pronounce it as two syllables /?po??m/.

Poem should be pronounced as po-em? right? Because it's a two syllable word?

People here pronounce plait as? 'plat'. Never heard it pronounced 'playt'.

Fair enough. I suppose its like the word 'chamois', both ways of saying it are acceptable. With most words I try to pronounce them the way they were spoken in their? original language, but I guess both ways of saying them are correct.

According to numerous online dictionaries, it's pronounced /ple?t/? in American English, or as you wrote it 'playt.' I recorded this video not to teach people how to pronounce obscure words, but to show my students (who are learning English as a foreign language) that English pronunciation is really messed up and they shouldn't be too hard on themselves when they don't know how to pronounce a word!

One? of the many problems with English is even the speakers of the language can't agree how to say half the words!

No, we rarely even use the word 'groat' at all! I didn't even know what 'groat' was before I read this poem. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, it's pronounced /?gr?t/ (IPA: /?ro?t/). This poem was written by a Dutch guy who learned to speak English with a British accent (RP) and wrote this poem in the early 1900s, when presumably the word 'groat' was more common. I said 'grits'? because it needed to rhyme with 'wits'!

Okay well if no one uses that word, shouldn't you? say it the way that is it actually said and used? Not trying to be difficult here or having a go, just genuinely wondering!

No one really says 'plait' at all, but for the purpose of saying this poem with an American accent, it's pronounced /ple?t/.? In North America people say 'braid' instead.