Re: tlhn'ks't, ngghlyam'ft, and other scary words

John Cowan wrote:

> Danny Wier scripsit:
>
> > That's because my native language is English, which is
> > obviously the language of the Devil, but it somehow functions with all those
> > ridiculous spelling conventions. Tetragraphs. English has <ough> with six
> > pronunciations,
>
> Eight: bough, though, enough, cough, bought, through, hough, borough.
> Not all dialects distinguish all of these.  (In RI they are
> bough, tho, enuff, coff, baught, thru, hock, burro respectively.)
> Even more remarkably, these eight pronunciations are distributed over
> only about 30 words altogether.
>
Nine if you include hiccough as an alternative spelling of hiccup

ten if you consider alternative pronunciations of borough /bVr@/ or /bVrou/

David Barrow

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