I remember many years ago reading George Bernard Shaw’s thesis about the rationalisation of English spelling.
To prove that there was absolutely no logic in the present rules of spelling English he offered an alternative spelling of the word fish.
He claimed that the word “ghoti” could be perfectly logically used to spell fish.
Take “gh” as pronounced in cough
“o” as pronounced in women
“ti” as pronounced in station.
And ghoti=fish.

I am just reading a book about the origins of language called
The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher.

In this he quotes a poem which he wrote himself about the difficulties in trying to apply rules to the tenses to English verbs.

He dedicates it to the memory of his frustrations in trying to learn English.

The teacher claimed it was so plain,
I only had to use my brain.
She said the past of throw was threw,
The past of grow – of course – was grew,
So flew must be the past of fly,
And now my boy your turn to try.

But when I trew,
I had no clue,
If mow was mew
Like know and knew
(Or is it knowed
like snow and snowed?)

The teached frowned at me and said
The past of feed was – plainly – fed
Fed up, I knew then what I ned.
I took a break and out I snoke,
And shook and quook (or quaked? or quoke?)
With raging anger out she broke:

Your ignorance you want to hide?
Tell me the past form of collide!
But how on earth should I decide
If it’s collid
(Like hide and hid).
Or else-from all that I surmose,
The past of rise was simply rose,
And that of ride was surely rode,
So of collide must be cullode?

Oh damn those English verbs, I thought
The whole thing absolutely stought!
Of English I have had enough,
Those verbs of yours are much to tough.
Bolt upright on my chair I sat,
And said to her “that’s that” – I quat.

Guy Deutscher

Afterword, Later the same day.

My friend Heinz Lechlieter has sent me the following, another poem about the difficulties of foreigners coming to an understanding of the rules of phonic English.
It must be a nightmare!

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough 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, or brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there’s doze 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, I’ve hardly made a start!

A dreadful language? Man alive!
I learned to speak it when I was five!
And yet to write it, the more I sigh,
I’ll not learn how ’til the day I die.