It occurs to me that a lot of common words in English are exceptions to the regular phonetic rules as a direct result of being used so often. What I mean is that people tend to shorten words when they speak and cause long vowel sounds to become short vowel sounds. When this is done often enough the short vowel sounds become the standard pronunciation. Examples below.
Good and hood do not rhyme with food or mood. Ditto for blood.
Foot does not rhyme with boot or moot.
Favorite does not rhyme with kite and site.
Live (the verb) is pronounced differently from live (the adjective). Nor does give rhyme with five and hive.
How, now, brown and cow do not rhyme with glow, know, mow and stow.
Bear and pear do not rhyme with ear, fear and near. Nor do break and steak rhyme with beak and teak.
Read (the past tense verb) is pronounced differently than read (the present tense verb).
Said does not rhyme with maid. Nor does mountain or fountain rhyme with grain, rain or stain.
Curiously enough, my mom has at home a book that is over a hundred years old. In it there is a poem in which said and maid are used as rhymes. Believe it or not.
It is also worth noting that a lot of the words above are German words and that the corresponding words in German do rhyme AFAIK (as far as I know).
Martin
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Food and foot are hard to distinguish.
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