Fun_People Archive
1 Mar
English--Lesson 1 (fwd)

Date: Fri, 1 Mar 96 18:22:09 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: English--Lesson 1 (fwd)

Forwarded-by: Lani Herrmann <lanih@info.sims.berkeley.edu>
Forwarded-by: jmichael@sas.upenn.edu (Jennifer L Michael)
Forwarded-by: Lisa Ratmansky
Forwarded-by: Kristine Lynn Rabberman
From: East West Magazine of the Long Yang Club

        THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

 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 here is not a match for there,
 And 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!

© 1996 Peter Langston