ough the cough

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 11:20 AM 12/6/99 -0800, you wrote:
>"Prof. Roly Sussex" wrote:
> >
> > The following sentence is repeated hundreds of times on the Web
> > - it purports to give 9 pronunciations of ough:
> >
> > "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the
> streets of
> > Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
> >
> > How many do native American speakers find? I need hough = hock to
> > make 9 in Australian English. Or lough = loch ...
> >
>
>Hmm, I have 2 pronunciations for slough.  As the verb I pronounce and write it
>as "sluff".  As the noun referring to a marsh, I pronounce it /slau/ to rhyme
>with "plough"  (which I would write as "plow", but that's another matter).
I forgot about 'plough'--so we're back to 8 for BritEng, aren't we?  In
context, 'slough' is clearly a noun, but maybe the website is counting the
verb also.  Has anyone been able to bring up the website??


>Having said that, the latter pronunciation may be due to my English husband's
>influence.  I really never had occasion to read or say "slough" until
>recently.
>Back in Texas, we just said "Louisiana".
>
>Andrea
>(who has no idea what they call them in CT)