Why does the ending -ough have six pronunciations? Very nearly, "ough" is pronounced ɔː in all words and only words spelled with "ought" (I know "daughter" isn't even spelled with ough today, but it has a similar history and the same pronunciation ) It's unclear to me why the pronunciation developed this way in these words, but it seems quite regular
Spelling with ought or aught - English Language Usage Stack Exchange The Old English form does not always correspond to the modern spelling like this; for example, daughter comes from Old English dohtor The Oxford English dictionary says that doughter was formerly the usual spelling, and that the spelling daughter probably reflects the southern vowel change of -ough- to -augh-
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
ought with or without to? [duplicate] - English Language Usage . . . It depends on whether the speaker has internalized ought as a separate item from oughtta It's got no other use and it's rare with an uncomplemented infinitive Phrases such as I ought never to have invited him feel odd, like formalized variants made up on the spot It's much more likely to be should never have, with no to And a final ought turns into an oughtta most of the time
What is the meaning of ought not? - English Language Usage Stack . . . Verbs like ought, should, must, have to express degrees of desirability or probability, neither of which really apply to non-sentient things like branches Maybe the branches "ought not reach" according to the writer's preconceived notions of whether they were likely to Or maybe it's a type of plant that can extract soil-based nutrients from far-reaching branches (like weeping willows, I
A pronunciation question of slough - English Language Usage Stack . . . A r ough -coated, d ough -faced, th ough tful pl ough man strode thr ough the streets of Scarbor ough; after falling into a slough, he c ough ed and hicc ough ed 'Slough' isn't bolded, so not thought by those authors to be an additional pronunciation
Rule for the pronunciation of the letter O as ʌ vs. ɒ The sub-patterns might be used as "warning signs" to indicate which words might plausibly be pronounced with ʌ : e g if the O doesn't occur in one of the following contexts (oth, on, om, mo, wo, ov, ough, the digraph ou) it's quite unlikely that it is pronounced as ʌ , although not completely impossible (as far as I can tell, the words
What is this famous example of the absurdity of English spelling? And it means SHOWER ce = sh as in "ocean" 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