I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough.

Others may stumble, but not you,

On hiccough, thorough, though, 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.

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 and lose,

Just look them up – goose and choose

And cork and work and card and ward

And front and font, and word and sword

And do and go, and wart and cart -

Come! Come! I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!

I mastered it – when I was five!!!

– author unknown