The English Language

We play with words a lot at my house. English makes it easy. there are so many words that either look the same but sound different or sounds the same but look different, well you know what I mean. It's a wonder anyone anyone ever learns english as a second Language.

We can start with the famous combination of letters "ough", which will be familiar to readers of Dr Seuss. Now if you see the letters "ough" in a word, it's more or less a guessing game how to pronounce it, because there's no sense to any of it. For example (and I'm sure this isn't exhaustive), you might expect by looking at the following words, that they sound at least roughly the same:

Bough - the branch of a tree, rhymes with "cow".
Cough - expulsion of air from the mouth, rhymes with "off".
Dough - mixture used to make bread, rhymes with "toe".
Rough - opposite of smooth, sounds like "ruff".
Through - among or between, rhymes with "true".
Thought - an idea, rhymes with "port".
Thorough - diligently done, same vowel sounds as "color".

We have a street here in town called Loughborough It's pronounced Loff bor o. the first part rhymes with cough and the third (last syllable) rhymes with dough.. OF course at My house we butcher it and make both the first and last parts rhyme the same. so it's either loff -bor-off. or lo-bor-o. We like consistancy, especially if it is funny.

There are also other, less extreme examples of this with other letter combinations, such as:

Hear / Heart / Heard / Bear / Beard
Bomb / Comb / Tomb
Bone / Done / Gone
Boing / Doing / Going
Foul / Ghoul / Soul
Cove / Glove / Move
Dose / Hose / Lose
Here / There / Were
Has / Was / Bras
Daughter / Laughter
Bather / Father / Gather