• Elvith Ma'for@feddit.org
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    4 days ago

    When the English tongue we speak.
    Why is break not rhymed with freak?
    Will you tell me why it’s true
    We say sew but likewise few?
    And the maker of the verse,
    Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
    Beard is not the same as heard
    Cord is different from word.
    Cow is cow but low is low
    Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
    Think of hose, dose,and lose
    And think of goose and yet with choose
    Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
    Doll and roll or home and some.
    Since pay is rhymed with say
    Why not paid with said I pray?
    Think of blood, food and good.
    Mould is not pronounced like could.
    Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
    Is there any reason known?
    To sum up all, it seems to me
    Sound and letters don’t agree.

    - Lord Cromer, 1902

      • Elvith Ma'for@feddit.org
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        4 days ago

        There are a few of them. There’s also

        Phoney Phonetics.

        One reason why I cannot spell,
        Although I learned the rules quite well
        Is that some words like coup and through
        Sound just like threw and flue and Who;
        When oo is never spelled the same,
        The duice becomes a guessing game;
        And then I ponder over though,
        Is it spelled so, or throw, or beau,
        And bough is never bow, it’s bow,
        I mean the bow that sounds like plow,
        And not the bow that sounds like row -
        The row that is pronounced like roe.
        I wonder, too, why rough and tough,
        That sound the same as gruff and muff,
        Are spelled like bough and though, for they
        Are both pronounced a different way.
        And why can’t I spell trough and cough
        The same as I do scoff and golf?
        Why isn’t drought spelled just like route,
        or doubt or pout or sauerkraut?
        When words all sound so much the same
        To change the spelling seems a shame.
        There is no sense - see sound like cents -
        in making such a difference
        Between the sight and sound of words;
        Each spelling rule that undergirds
        The way a word should look will fail
        And often prove to no avail
        Because exceptions will negate
        The truth of what the rule may state;
        So though I try, I still despair
        And moan and mutter “It’s not fair
        That I’m held up to ridicule
        And made to look like such a fool
        When it’s the spelling that’s at fault.
        Let’s call this nonsense to a halt.”

        - Attributed to Vivian Buchan, 1966

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Horse and worse rhyme.

      Also so does cord and word.

      Did I miss something or were they pronounced differently 123 years ago?