this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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[–] disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 41 points 11 months ago (14 children)

English is weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago (10 children)

How many ways can "ough" be pronounced in English?

through - oo

tough - uff

though - oh

thought - ah

cough - off

bough - ow

Any others?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 13 points 11 months ago (9 children)

thought - ah

?

thought - or; if you pronounce it the UK/Aus/NZ way

thought - o; if you pronounce it with a general American accent

As for others:

  • thorough - uh (schwa)
  • hiccough - up
[–] gramathy@lemmy.ml 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Would phoneticizing it as “aw” help? American English pronounces “thought” as if you added a t to ‘thaw’

Saying it’s “o” makes it sound like you mean it to be pronounced “oh”

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

As far as Latin alphabet approximates, I'd say "aw" is pretty perfect. Because I think most accents will pronounce "thought" as if you add a t to "thaw". It's just that what that means in terms of the actual articulation varies a lot.

So, Americans with the cot-caught merger will pronounce it with the "cot" vowel, which is what I was trying to get across. UK/Aus/NZ don't all pronounce it the same as each other, but do for the most part pronounce it with the same vowel as they would use for the word "or". And "thaw", in our non-rhotic accents, is the same as Thor.

So "aw" works either way. Nice find!

[–] Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure "caught" won and "cot" lost in the caught-cot merger. I don't think most Americans would conceive of it as an "o" sound

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

When I hear an American with the caught/cot merger say "caught", it sounds way more similar to my (unmerged) "cot" than my "caught"

[–] Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I believe you. I meant more that it "won" conceptually than phonetically. To an American ear it sounds more like "aw" or "ah" than "o".

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 11 months ago

Oh yeah, maybe. I don't really know how you'd measure that.

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