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Spelling!

Thought you might enjoy this oldie...

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now 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' 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, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose 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, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.
 
With a surname of Clough I am very used to miss-pronounciations.
It rhymes with rough, tough even woof. But not Slough.


John
 
audiorob said:
Thought you might enjoy this oldie...

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now 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' 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, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose 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, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.
Click to expand...
Lovely, and yet for all its intricacies and contradictions we all had no trouble learning the English language.
 
Woodentop said:
That was because somewhere someone well known referred to it as the 'Slough of despond.'
Click to expand...
A friend of mine arrived at Heathrow from Pakistan. When I met up with him in Plymouth I asked him where he had stopped overnight. His reply “ a hotel in sluuffi” Such is the English language but I’ve made equal boo boos in French. Cannot remember genders so use Le or La with a random distribution.
 
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RogerL said:
When I lived in Reading, I've heard Slough pronounced to rhyme with rough, but that was a minority.
Click to expand...
Slough does rhyme with Rough, when used in the medical sense of dead tissue ( often skin) separating from living tissue. Hence if your skin was sloughing off then you might be in the slough of despond. ( John Buyan, Pilgrim’s Progress).
Aren’t you glad I told you that.
Our severely Dyslexic son would often say “Damn you Homophones” when yet another spelling eluded him. 😀
mel
 
Mel said:
Slough does rhyme with Rough, when used in the medical sense of dead tissue ( often skin) separating from living tissue. Hence if your skin was sloughing off then you might be in the slough of despond. ( John Buyan, Pilgrim’s Progress).
Aren’t you glad I told you that.
Our severely Dyslexic son would often say “Damn you Homophones” when yet another spelling eluded him. 😀
mel
Click to expand...
Don’t snakes slough their skin? There used to be a Snakes and Ladders play Center in Slough. Aptly named.
ED34364A-C2C6-4396-84F3-44044C7BBE0D.png
 
Last edited:
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Reactions: Mel
audiorob said:
Thought you might enjoy this oldie...

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now 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' 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, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's doze and rose 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, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I'll not learn how 'til the day I die.
Click to expand...
I can’t wait to hear Hutch recite this poem after his tenth pint😜😜😜😜
 
otherclive said:
A friend of mine arrived at Heathrow from Pakistan. When I met up with him in Plymouth I asked him where he had stopped overnight. His reply “ a hotel in sluuffi” Such is the English language but I’ve made equal boo boos in French. Cannot remember genders so use Le or La with a random distribution.
Click to expand...
I had the same issue pronouncing Reading as "reading" a book. To me Leominster was "Leo minster". Names of most Welsh towns I cannot even begin to pronounce correctly.
 
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