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 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 in brother.
And there is not a match for here,
Nor 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 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.
=========================
The poem above was in "The Age",16th July 2004, in a
Letter to the Editor, by Allen Harley of Caulfield, Vic.
=========================


Don H's response - Spelling Reform
=============================
Let's celebrate our English text,
Not harping on few words which vexed;
But concentrate on Rules instead,
Where Sound conforms to what is ...Rehd?

English changes mat to mate,
And mat to matting, rat to rate.
There is little problem there,
Yet come to.. yacht - and tear your hair?

And where the match is not exact,
Well then, some tolerance and tact,
Can, by spelling change a bit,
Make a better fit of it.

Why shouldn't then word tough be tuff?
There's really no need for a hough.
But change also a cough to coff,
And bough to bou, enough's enuf !

I'm happy quite, if dough is doh,
Thorough, thoruh, won't say nough.
As for lough, that Scottish wurd,
Lokh is fine, no way absurd.

Oh yes, I've hird of dredful wurds,
How graet a thret if meat occurred,
Where suite was also (swete to me),
Seems straet enuf, no deht it be.

"All very well", I hear you say,
"To make reforms in such a way."
"We mousy scribblers grant fiat,"
"But who is gonna bell the cat?"

* * * * *

Is Orthodoxy here to stay?
A Slip-shod, converse? Yuk, no way!
But Reform is worth a look;
'Cos Anomalies are crook.

Too much change, we should not make,
For our Language History's sake.
But Spelling Shifts, if done with care,
Can be deemed both Wise and Fair.
=============================

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