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British Phonetics

The document is a humorous poem that summarizes some of the irregular spellings and pronunciations in British English phonics. In 3 sentences: The poem notes that words like tough, bough, cough, and dough have irregular pronunciations. It warns of other phonetic traps like heard, dead, meat, great, and threat. The author jokes that they have "hardly made a start" in explaining the complexities of British phonetic spellings, and advises readers to "give it up" in trying to learn them all.

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Priyanka Dutt
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281 views2 pages

British Phonetics

The document is a humorous poem that summarizes some of the irregular spellings and pronunciations in British English phonics. In 3 sentences: The poem notes that words like tough, bough, cough, and dough have irregular pronunciations. It warns of other phonetic traps like heard, dead, meat, great, and threat. The author jokes that they have "hardly made a start" in explaining the complexities of British phonetic spellings, and advises readers to "give it up" in trying to learn them all.

Uploaded by

Priyanka Dutt
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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British Phonetics

I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough. Others may stumble, but not you, On Hiccough, thorough, laugh 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, nor 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 work and sword, And do and go, and thwart and cart. Come, come! I've hardly made a start. A dreadful language? Man alive! I mastered it when I was five! I will teach you in my verse Words like corps, corks, horse and worse. For this phonetic labyrinth Yields monkey, donkey, ninth and plinth, Wounded, rounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dies and diet, lord and word; Earth and hearth and clerk and herd; Evil, devil, tomb, bomb, comb; Doll, roll; dull, bull; some and home. Finally - for I've had enough Through, though, thorough, plough, cough, tough,

While hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is give it up.

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