Why does the ending -ough have six pronunciations? ough = uː "oo" sound: through < OE þurh; slough (n) (some varieties) According to the OED, the vowel sound used for ough in through is the result of re-stressing a vowel that had become unstressed (the word originated as an unstressed version of thorough)
word choice - English Language Usage Stack Exchange @Mehper: I bet you had no idea this question was going to open such a can of worms! I think it's one of those pathological cases (in the mathematical sense of one whose properties are considered atypically bad), in that the word is (relatively) common, so competent speakers tend to have pretty clear ideas of acceptable usage in their own idiolect
Spelling with ought or aught - English Language Usage Stack Exchange The o forms and a forms remained distinct in Middle English because the sequences -augh-and -ough-were phonologically different; however, in some dialects in late Middle English -ough-came to sound like -augh-, and this pronunciation was gradually introduced into standard English during the 17th cent
A pronunciation question of slough - English Language Usage Stack . . . A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed 'Slough' isn't bolded, so not thought by those authors to be an additional pronunciation This can be verified by listening to the recording, which uses the same sound in 'slough' as in 'plough'
Why isn’t the pronunciation of though anyhow close to the one of . . . The graphemic sequence -ough has at least ten different pronunciations in current English (some very common, some extremely rare) Their various histories are quite complex, but in general, you just cannot assume that the same letters represent the same sounds in different words in English
English letter sequence with most pronunciations The letters -ough- can be pronounced a ridiculous number of different ways in English Here is a possibly incomplete list: tough, enough cough, trough bough, plough though, dough thought, bought t
Why does ow have two different sounds - English Language Usage . . . There are lots of letter combinations in English that are not always pronounced the same Even a simple o can be pronounced in a number of different ways, not to mention ough There are quite a few forces at work here, but the big picture is probably this: pronunciation changes all the time, and so does spelling, but for entirely different
What is this famous example of the absurdity of English spelling? ough = ow as in "bough" olo = er as in "colonel" Sure it is weird but it is what the question is asking about "Ce" does not give the sh sound at the beginning of a word, and "olo" only gives the er in "colonel" If we look at the "ghoti", gh never gives f sound at the beginning and ti never gives sh at the end So both of these are just the