Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
The many way to pronounce 'ough'.
Ough is a letter sequence often seen in words in the English language. In Middle English, where the spelling arose, it was pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative (e.g., , , , or ).
English has borrowed words from all over the world. This results in a delightful mess of letter combinations that can be pronounced in many different ways.
|
I’m taught p-l-o-u-g-h Shall be pronouncé “plow.” “Zat’s easy w’en you know,” I say, “Mon Anglais, I’ll get through!” My teacher say zat in zat case, O-u-g-h is “oo.” And zen I laugh and say to him, “Zees Anglais make me cough.” He say, “Not ‘coo,’ but in zat word, O-u-g-h is ‘off.'” Oh, Sacre bleu! Such varied sounds Of words makes me hiccough! He say, “Again mon frien’ ees wrong; O-u-g-h is ‘up’ In hiccough.” Zen I cry, “No more, You make my t’roat feel rough.” “Non, non!” he cry, “you are not right; O-u-g-h is ‘uff.'”
Enough Is Enough
Four letters cause me disillusion OUGH makes phonetic confusion Four simple letters with four pronunciations Make learning English tough for Asians.
OUGH has no logic, no rule Or rhyme or rhythm; it will fool All who struggle to master expression English may cause thorough depression.
I pour some water in a trough I sneeze and splutter, then I cough. And with a rough hewn bough My muddy paddy fields I plough.
Loaves of warm bread in a row Crispy crusts and doughy dough. Now, my final duty to do And then my chores will all be through.
My lament is finished, even though Learning this word game is really slow. It is so difficult, it’s very rough Learning English is really tough.
If a trough was a truff And a plough was a pluff If dough was duff And though was thuff
If cough was cuff And through was thruff I would not pretend, or try to bluff, But of OUGH I’ve had enough.
— Rosemary Chen
The following is a partial list of linguistic example sentences illustrating various linguistic phenomena. Different types of ambiguity which are possible in language. Demonstrations of words which have multiple meanings dependent on context. Will, will Will will Will Will's will?
Ambiguity[edit] Different types of ambiguity which are possible in language.
Lexical ambiguity[edit] Demonstrations of words which have multiple meanings dependent on context.
Will, will Will will Will Will's will? – Will (a person), will (future tense helping verb) Will (a second person) will (bequeath) [to] Will (a third person) Will's (the second person) will (a document)? (Someone asked Will 1 directly if Will 2 plans to bequeath his own will, the document, to Will 3.)[1] Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. – Buffaloes from Buffalo, NY, whom buffaloes from Buffalo bully, bully buffaloes from Buffalo. Police police Police police police police Police police.[2] — Cops from Police, Poland, whom cops from Poland patrol, patrol cops from Poland. Rose rose to put rose roes on her rows of roses. (Robert J. Baran) – Rose [a person] rose [stood] to put rose [pink-colored] roes [fish eggs as fertilizer] on her rows of roses [flower]. James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher[3] – With punctuation: "James, while John had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had a better effect on the teacher", or "James, while John had had 'had had', had had 'had'. 'Had had' had had a better effect on the teacher" That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is – Grammatically corrected as: "That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is". Can can can can can can can can can can. – "Examples of the can-can dance that other examples of the same dance are able to outshine, or figuratively to put into the trashcan, are themselves able to outshine examples of the same dance". It could alternatively be interpreted as a question, "Is it possible for examples of the dance that have been outshone to outshine others?" or several other ways. Martin Gardner offered the example: "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"[4] Syntactic ambiguity[edit] Further information: Syntactic ambiguity Demonstrations of ambiguity between alternative syntactic structures underlying a sentence.
We saw her duck.[5] One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.[6] Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
There aren't any such words in common use, though the 20-volume historical Oxford English Dictionary does contain the word Rousseauian meaning 'relating to the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau or his views on religion, politics, education, etc.'.
The more familiar words queuing/queueing contain clusters of vowels but there's no letter 'a' among them.
Some words which come from Greek also contain several vowels strung together, for example pharmacopoeia or onomatopoeic, but none contain all five vowels with no consonants in between.
|