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I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble but not you, On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through. Well done! and now you wish, perphaps, to learn of less familiar traps? beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird, and dead; it's said like bed not bead For goodness' sake don't call it deed. watch out for meat and great and threat, (they rhyme with suite and straight and bedt). A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother, And here is not a match for there Nor dear and fear for bear and pear; And then there's dose and rose and lose - Just look them up - and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward, And fond and front and word and sword, and do and go and thwart and cart - Come, come I've hardly made a start. A dreadul language? Man alive! I will teach you in my verse Words like corps, cork, horse and worse; For this phonetic labyrinth Give monkey, donkey, ninth and plinth; wounded, rounded, grieve and sieve; Friend and fiend; alive and live; Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury; Dies and diet, lord and word; Evil, devil, tomb, bomb, comb; Doll, roll, dull, bull; some and home. Finally - for I've surely said enough - Through, though, thorough, plough, cough, tough, Whilst hiccough has the sound of cup...... My advice is : Give it up! |
