A useful article to be read: https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/teaching-pronunciation-more-just-listen-and-repeat?_ga=2.38258339.1060578019.1544720162-600702601.1498497843
When the English tongue we speak
A poem on the difficulty of pronouncing English
When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it’s true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose,and lose
And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone –
Is there any reason known?
And in all it seems to me
Sound and letters disagree.
Written by Lord Cromer, published in the Spectator of August 9th, 1902
