Fine and Full - What's up with Jay and Anastasia

Apr 05 2006

Cannot rhyme his horse with worse

Published by at 10:49 am with

I found this great page of poems showing the absurdities of English spelling (via BoingBoing). Here’s an excerpt of one:

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 ‘juice’ becomes a guessing game;
And then I ponder over ‘though’,
Is it spelled ‘so’, or ‘throw’, or ‘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’?

Go check out all the poems for a nice bit of recreational diversion.

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