I was looking through one of my old files and I came across this poem. Each pair of lines rhymes. It also includes a ninth pronunciation of the letters "ough" – the word lough is pronounced similarly to the Scottish "loch", with a short "o" and a gutteral "ch". Enjoy!English as she is spoke
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish perhaps
To know 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 debt),
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 rose and close and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go and thwart and cart.
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I’d mastered it when I was five.