Gerard Nolst Trenité

Who was Gerard Nolst Trenité?

Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité, was a Dutch observer of English.

Nolst Trenité published under the pseudonym Charivarius. While the pronunciation of his own surname is not obvious, he is best known in the English-speaking world for his poem The Chaos which demonstrates many of the idiosyncrasies of English spelling and first appeared as an appendix to his 1920 textbook Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen. The subtitle of the book means "English pronunciation exercises".