taught - bought

[barryd]

hello,

why are some verbs written with a (like taught) and some verbs with o (bought) in the v2 form.

Thank you

[Syl]

Here is the answer:


"" GHOTI = FISH ???
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 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.
by
T.S.W."



Syl

[Susan]

lovely, thanks for this!

[Syl]

Here is another one:

Why English is so Hard (a poem)

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called me,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural pf vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
But I give you a boot — would a pair be called beet?

If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
So our English, I think you will agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim.
Let's face it, English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candles while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
Quicksand works slowly, boxing rings are square
and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?
One goose, two geese. So - one moose, two meese?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
what do you call it? Is it an odd, or an end?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
In what language do people recite a play and play a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are the opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down,
in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm is going off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers,
and it reflects the creativity of the human race,
which, of course, is not a race at all.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible,
but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

(From the Internet, origin unknown.)