Jay Doubleyou: english is highly irregular

English doesn't make much sense:

Today's 'Word of Mouth' on BBC Radio 4 has author and poet Michael Rosen interviewing Arika Okrent:

She has a new book out:

Michael Rosen finishes his programme with a bit from a famous poem on English pronunciation:

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 sakes don’t call it deed.

Jay Doubleyou