Pea Sea, by Anon
Eye have a spelling chequer.
It came with my pea sea:
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss takes eye can knot sea.
Eye strike the quays and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather I am rite oar wrong.
It shows me straight aweigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee four two long,
And eye can put the error rite:
Its rare lea ever wrong.
I've run this poem threw it,
Eye am shore yore pleas two no.
It's letter perfect in its weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.
Hints on Pronunciation, by Anon
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 more 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 does and rose and lose,
Just look them up: and goose and choose
And cork and walk and word 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!
