Linguistics Corner
Tough? Not if thought through thoroughly...
Today we're going to play a game in which we take a particular sequence of letters and try to find out how many different pronunciations you can get from them.
Our letters are: -ough.
The Robertson Languages team has managed to come up with ten different pronunciations, but - rather mischievously - we list only eight of them below. Can you find another two?
And if you really want to impress us, how about finding one we haven't thought of?
| Pronunciation | Example |
| uff | enough |
| off | cough |
| ow | bough |
| ooh | through |
| uh | thorough |
| or | bought |
| och | lough (Irish variant of Scottish 'loch') |
| ock | Lough (Irish surname pronounced 'lock') |
Email your answers to:
It's 'oghotial': English pronunciation is the strangest
English. It's a funny old language, and nowhere is that more true than in the area of pronunciation.
You may well be familiar with a game in which you create a 'word' from letter combinations which produce the right sound when used in the context of a different word, but make little or no sense at first glance in the new word. The most famous example of this is probably the invented word ghoti, which is of course pronounced "fish". (cough, women, station). Feel free to find your own examples - and email any good ones to: