ough

While I was researching the spelling ough for the previous batch of Grammarbites, I saw in the Wikipedia article on that spelling a list of four poems highlighting the inconsistencies. I easily found them on the internet and gather them here for your convenience. Two of them are written in the voice of an English language learner, the second one possibly the writer’s own experience.

(In the first two, you need to make the “wrong” pronunciation at the end of each verse.)

“O-U-G-H”
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!”

“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.’”
I say, “I try to spik your words,
I cannot spik zem though.”

“In time you’ll learn, but now you’re wrong!
O-u-g-h is ‘owe.’”
“I’ll try no more, I s’all go mad,
I’ll drown me in ze lough!”

“But ere you drown yourself,” said he,
“O-u-g-h is ‘ock.’”
He taught no more, I held him fast,
And killed him wiz a rough!

— Charles Battell Loomis

The baker-man was kneading dough
And whistling softly, sweet and lough.

Yet ever and anon he’d cough
As though his head were coming ough!

“My word!” said he,” but this is rough:
This flour is simply awful stough!”

He punched and thumped it through and through,
As all good bakers dough!

“I’d sooner drive,” said he “a plough
Than be a baker anyhough!”

Thus spake the baker kneading dough;
But don’t let on I told you sough!

— William Thomas Goodge

(This is the first verse only. The poem goes on to other pronunciation inconsistencies.)

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble but not you,
On hiccough, through, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.

— attrib T. S. Watt

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

(This is the very last part of a very long poem featuring almost every pronunciation inconsistency in English. For the complete poem and information about see here.)

Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup …
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

— Gerard Nolst Trenité (The Chaos)

There are a number of videos on Youtube of people reciting part of this very long poem . The first four I found are, conveniently, by a man and woman from North America and the United Kingdom, for comparison.

NAm man UK woman NAm woman UK man

Finally, this pronunciation inconsistency featured in an episode of I love Lucy. The character Ricky Ricardo is a fictionalised version of the actor Desi Arnaz. As far as I know, that’s his natural pronunciation (apart from the ough words). (He has a point about English spelling and pronunciation compared to Spanish.)