Homework

The poem below (seen everywhere; I have not attempted to locate the original source) makes fun of the often unpredictable relation between English pronunciation and spelling. For homework, give broad transcriptions of each of the italicized words. Many of these words are in the posted word list; for others you may need to use a dictionary or ask a native speaker. You should use the transcription system we have been using in class, which may be different than your dictionary. Hint: if you get the pronunciations right, the poem will rhyme. I think it works equally well in American and British pronunciation, so you can choose either dialect for transcription.

You may work together with classmates on looking up the words, but everyone must write up their answers by themselves.

Crazy English

Our English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the craziest language you ever did see.

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 in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Or 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, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!