My students are working on adapting The Raven into a play. Since this is an older work with a lot of English that no one uses anymore there have been a lot of pronunciation mistakes. During the readings today, however, one really took the cake. The offending word is in the following passage:
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! – prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
On this home by Horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore-
Is there- is there balm in Gilead?- tell me- tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Now, there are many words in this passage that students struggled with. Despite this, the offending word was not one I was anticipating problems with. It is the word “ashore”. And when a student first said it, I literally gasped.
Can you guess how they said it?
As soon as I saw ashore, I knew that had to be the word! Too funny!
Me too! But, it is still funny!
Hahaha I remember you talking about this, but reading it gave me a new chuckle. What, espanol has no ´sh´ combo? That´s a mini phonics lesson.