-ough

[vakkotaur]

"The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways.
The following sentence contains them all: A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

But I must be missing something or not speaking in the required dialect. I only count eight different pronunciations:

1. rough - uff
2. dough - oh
3. thought - aw
4. plough - ow
5. through - oo
6. Scarborough -ah/uh
7. slough - oo (uff?)
8. cough - off
9. hiccough - up

So, what am I missing, or is the quoted text wrong? For the record my dialect would be either (Northern) Midwest or maybe Great Lakes if that is at all helpful in this.

Comments

[nicodemusrat.livejournal.com]

I've always had the same problem with this one. I would pronounce these the same way (using "uh" for Scarborough and "oo" for slough).

And the modern spelling "hiccup" furthers the confusion...

[foolscap001.livejournal.com]

I'd always heard "...borough" as pronounced like "burrow."

Evidently there's "slough" /slew/ and "slough" /sluff/, according to dictionary.com. /slew/ is the sort of thing the ploughman would fall into (or, by figurative extension, deep despair), while /sluff/ is what the body does with dead skin, or the dead skin itself.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I'd always heard "...borough" as pronounced like "burrow."

So have I, however I went with ah/uh here to try to bring the count up, really. "Borrow" would be, to me, another instance of 'oh' like 'dough'.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Scarborough can also be pronounced 'scarburruh' though.

[irpooh.livejournal.com]

slough - probably is "slew"... I've tried all the dialects I know... unless they are going for the duration ... that's me pence on it

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

And slough is the problem. It doesn't matter if it's "sluff" or "slew" (I think it is "slew") as either way it's a duplicate. It either duplicated rough or through, as far as I can tell. For all I know the claim was made by a person who was very literate but barely numerate.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. These are regional issues, though. Midwesterners don't usually distinguish between the palatalized ew and the nonpalatalized oo(h). Many English speakers will pronounce 'slough' as 'slyoo' if you will, yet pronounce 'through' as 'throo'.

Do you distinguish between the vowels of 'cot' and 'caught' or are they the same? To some they are identical, to others not. ;)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

That is the sort of thing I was expecting to be overlooking or not aware of, the 'slyoo' rather than 'sloo' bit.

Yes, I do. To me, 'cot' is 'kot' and 'caught' is 'kawt' or at least something closer to it than 'kot' is.

[jdm314.livejournal.com]

This does seem to be biased towards UK English. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. But in any case, I can't quite figure it out either. The OED lists 7 definitions for <slough>:

1) rhymes with "plough": an impassibly muddy patch of ground.
2) rhymes with "rough": that which is cast off, especially the skin of a an animal that sheds
3) pronunciation unknown: an obsolete term from the 17th century for "A damp, in Cole-pits usuall."
4) rhymes with "rough": "slipping at the foot of the materials, which may be observed on most large embankments"
5) rhymes with "plough": the organic pith of a bovine's horn
6) rhymes with "plough": to cover up in a landslide, to imprison [in both senses mostly found in the passive]
7) rhymes with "rough": to shed, cast off

It also mentions words like "sloughhound" (apparently pronounced "slooth"), which is a type of scottish bloodhound, "sloughful" (apparently prnounced like "slowful"), and "sloughtful" (apparently pronouced "slothful").

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

I pronounce "slough" as "sluff"

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Is it slough that is the issue for you? That word has two definitions, and we pronounce it two ways. 'sluff' is to dump something unneeded, as to slough dead skin cells. 'sloo' is a kind of bog.