If I were learning English
I’d surely climb a wall
Cuz the only rule in English
Is there’s no rule “a tall”
Consider how our language
Has silent letters, damn!
If you’re a foreign learner
You’ll cramn for each examn
Some other silent letters
Like the ‘b’ contained in ‘doubt’
Are sometimes present in a word
And sometimes get left oubt
But if you think our language
Is not so very dumb
Consider inconsistencies
That must be overcumb
A ‘g’ is soft like ‘j’ in jet
And hard like what’s in gum
But how do you distinguish
When saying ‘sum’ or ‘some’?
There’s ‘flower’ that rhymes with ‘sour’
But ‘sour’ not with ‘your’
And ‘cower’, ‘tower’, and ‘power’ don’t rhyme
With ‘slower’, ‘blower’, or ‘grower’
‘Through’ and ‘though’ and ‘trough’ and ‘bough’
Sound nothing like each other
But ‘father’ sounds just like it’s spelled
So shouldn’t we spell it ‘muther’?
Aha, you say the secret is
The end each word has got
To which I’d simply point you to
‘Sought’, ‘caught’, ‘got’, ‘yacht’ and ‘taut’
‘What’ ?!?
Also pronunciations
Can change with use, I’ve found
‘Does’ rhymes ‘fuzz’ when it’s a verb
But with ‘goes’ as a plural noun
When it comes to similar endings
Consider ‘bussed’ and ‘cussed’
The pair suggesting spellings
One simply cannot ‘trussed’
Two common words like ’her’ and ‘were’
Both make good rhymes with ‘fur’
But partner spellings ‘here’ and ‘we’re’
Each sound much more like ‘fear’
The ‘w’ is silent in ‘answer’
As well as the ’m’ in ‘mnemonic’
And also the ‘le’ found in ‘spelled’ (think ‘weld’)
I find that most ironic
Consider ‘word’ and ‘herd’ and ‘blurred’
And ‘heard’, ‘preferred’ and ‘third’
Each ending rhyming perfectly
Isn’t that ‘absurd’?
And what about the pair of ‘c’s
Contained in the word ‘access’?
The first is spoken as a ‘k’
The second one an ’s’
‘Pneumonia’ doesn’t need its ‘p’
We could drop the ‘e’ in ‘true’
But if a ‘gnu’ should lose its ‘g’
The ‘nu’ would be Greek to ‘yu’
There’s also ‘tear’ which can rhyme with ‘fear’
Or rhyme instead with ‘fare’
But please explain to me why ‘here’
Does not make rhyme with ‘there”
In the end I’d say our language has
A very strange design
Or maybe it makes perfect sense
And the problem is all ‘mign’
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