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?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don’t agree.
Hose is pronounced /hōz/ and dose is pronounced /dōs/ in “Standard English” (which is a specific and deliberately invented dialect taught to news anchors to try to smooth out all the regional differences), actual english varies so much over time and space that both words have numerous variations - https://www.howtopronounce.com/hose, plus we change our inflection on words depending on where they are in a sentence - and plenty of context can change if the emphasis is on the vowel or the ending consonant: All my hoes know a hose is a hose.
Simply put - as long as people understand the ideas you’re conveying, don’t worry too much about precise spelling and punctuation - it’s literally all made up.
Our Strange Lingo
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?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don’t agree.
- Lord Cromer
Beautiful, but is there really a difference in pronunciation of hose and dose? I always pronounce them similarly…
Hose is pronounced /hōz/ and dose is pronounced /dōs/ in “Standard English” (which is a specific and deliberately invented dialect taught to news anchors to try to smooth out all the regional differences), actual english varies so much over time and space that both words have numerous variations - https://www.howtopronounce.com/hose, plus we change our inflection on words depending on where they are in a sentence - and plenty of context can change if the emphasis is on the vowel or the ending consonant: All my hoes know a hose is a hose.
Simply put - as long as people understand the ideas you’re conveying, don’t worry too much about precise spelling and punctuation - it’s literally all made up.
A little bit:
hose: ˈhōz
dose: ˈdōs
See also “The Chaos”: https://ncf.idallen.com/english.html