How many ways can you pronounce 'ough'

I'd say "sluff" (as in enough) for "slough" is for shedding or shed skin; and the bog "slough" (as in Pilgrim's Progress) is the same as the place Betjeman wanted bombed.

Easy to see why some become despondent when learning English.

I think it is the case of 'we need a standard, any standard will do, no matter how rubbish it is, as long as everybody uses it.'

For a long time it was Latin.

Look at India and South Africa. The nearest thing to a 'common' language is English.

Faced with the need for a lingua franca, scandinavians often speak English to each other as well. Italians and Germans and French distrust each other so much that none will let the other be the 'default language of choice; but they all hate Britain equally, so that English is suitable.

Americans now all speak spanish

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhymes with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough? Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is give it up!

'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough'

Contrariwise, we were taught to avoid such sentences. From "Doctor in the House"

He applied the stethoscope and said "Big breaths" "Yeth" she replied "and I'm only thixteen".

I stand utterly humbled! What a tour de force!

Despond, usually.

There appear to be two entirely different words. pronounced sluff, or slew or slouw depending on if you are crossponded.

The first means to shed (a snakeskin, originally) and the second means a mire.

One wonders why Slough is called 'Slough'. As it's low-lying, and pretty close to the Thames, presumably it indeed was once was a boggy, swampy place. Or was it simply to deter unwanted visitors from coming?

But surely real charm is its quirkiness?

Also of interest are heteronyms: words with the same spelling pronounced differently depending on context, e.g. on whether they are capitalised.

e.g. Reading (town) vs. reading (a book) Natal (South Africa) vs. natal (pregnancy)

See

Am 24/02/2023 um 17:37 schrieb The Natural Philosopher:

Don't ask me. My mother tongue is not as f***ed up as the English language. Can't we all just go back to using Latin? _Dei Gratia!_

What? Please elucidate. There are a number of ways to spell it, all with different meanings but sounding slightly different, but not enough to hear it in a noisy room. Ore The substance contained in rock Oar, The things you move boats with. and of course... or, to mean either of two things. Logical Or means if either is true then it activates. Don't get me started on and Nand Xor etc. My brain is supposed to be resting. Brian

Not really, it is meaningless to me as well, hence my slightly obtuse replay. Brian

THere are two places here named Goodnestone. Allegedly, one is pronounced 'Good-ness-tone', and the other 'Gun-stone'.

Yeah, my kurdish mate who went thru the entire school system here until the last year of highschool, said that english is much too complicated. The kids all spoke kurdish at home. His mother has almost no english at all. His dad isnt too bad but nothing like as good as him. Him and his brother have problems with words like spouse so I help them with all their govt forms.

And with Italians in Italy too and Italian immigrants here. Weird.

Bullshit.