English
by Dr. Richard N. Krogh



I take it you already know
of tough, and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
on Hiccough, through, slough and though.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To lelran 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 brother, broth in brother.

And here is hot a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then thre's dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose,
And cork and work andcard and ward
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language: Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn'e learned it at fifty-five.




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