Poem -Pronunciation

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.

And cork and work and card and ward

And font and front and word and sword

Well done! And now if you wish, perhaps

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 sakes 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,

And 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 do and go, then thwart and cart.

Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!

I’d mastered it when I was five.