Who doesn't cough rhymes with dough?

It just intrigues me, you know. How some English words look like they rhymes but don't. So I just put that question to Pete, why doesn't cough rhymes with dough? (He was coughing a lot). I think his exact answer was *"Because! Dough is spelt d-o-u-g-h, and cough is spelt... oh."

And people wonder WHY I can't spell? Pfft.

In honour of my victory in proving English is a difficult, if not impossible, language to learn (and that "spelling by phonics" is a myth), allow me to blatantly plagiarise the following poem**:

Similar Sentiment

I take it you already know
of TOUGH and BOUGH and COUGH and DOUGH.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On words like HICCOUGH, THOROUGH, 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 PEAR and BEAR.
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, then THWART and CART.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!

* Pete probably won't admit it. ;) Don't blame him... afterall he's supposed to be the one who can spell in this relationship... I still love you Petey!!

**Don't look at me for some of them... I always think dose rhymes with rose... is it just me? What about goose and choose? If they do indeed sound different, I've yet to be enlightened. Probably it's my Asian accent. Some Asians are still convinced that chip sounds the same as cheap...