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,

Just look them up - and goose & choose,

And cork & work and card & ward,

And font & front and word & sword,

And do & go and thwart & cart -

Come, come, I've hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive,

I'd mastered it when I was five.

(from a letter in The Sunday Times, 3 January 1965)

~~~

Along the same lines...

1. We must polish the Polish furniture.

2. He could lead if he would get the lead out.

3. The farm was used to produce produce.

4. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

5. The soldier decided to desert in the desert.

6. This was a good time to present the present.

(And this last could mean "gift" or "era of time ")

7. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

8. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

9. I did not object to the object.

10. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

11. The bandage was wound around the wound.

12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13. They were too close to the door to close it.

14. The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15. They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.

16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18. After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19. Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.

20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?