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    (lough  pronounced lox)

Well done! And now you wish, perhaps

To learn of a 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 dose and rose an 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,

And yet to write, the more I tried,

I hadn’t learned at fifty five