Ough (orthography)

Orton-Spalding Phonograms - Illustrated - 'si', 'ci', 'ough', 'gu ...

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Ough is a letter sequence often seen in words in the English language. In Middle English, where the spelling arose, it was pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative (e.g., [o:x], [o:?], [u:x], or [u:?]). The sequence is ambiguous, having at least eight pronunciations in North American English and nine in British English; its pronunciation depends entirely on its placement in a given word, with most common being:

as in though (cf. toe).
as in through (cf. true).
as in rough (cf. ruffian).
as in cough (cf. coffin).
as in thought (cf. taut).
as in bough (cf. to bow [the gesture])

Video Ough (orthography)

List of pronunciations

Note that "slough" has three pronunciations depending on its meaning:

(as in, "slogging through a slough of mud")
(as in "to slough off", meaning to shed off)
the town of Slough in the Thames Valley of England or the Slough of Despond in Pilgrim's Progress

An example sentence using the nine pronunciations commonly found in modern usage (and excluding hough, which is now a rarely-used spelling) is, "The wind was rough along the lough as the ploughman fought through the snow, and though he hiccoughed and coughed, his work was thorough."

Other pronunciations can be found in proper nouns, many of which are of Celtic origin (Irish, Scottish, or Welsh) rather than English. For example, ough can represent in the surname Coughlin, in Ayscough and even in the name Colcolough () in Virginia.

The two occurrences of ?ough? in the English place name Loughborough are pronounced differently, resulting in . Additionally, three parishes of Milton Keynes--Woughton , Loughton and Broughton --all have different pronunciations of the combination.

Tough, though, through and thorough are formed by adding another letter each time, yet none of them rhyme.

Some humorous verse has been written to illustrate this seeming incongruity:

"A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode, coughing and hiccoughing, thoughtfully through the streets of Scarborough."
"O-U-G-H" by Charles Battell Loomis
"Ough, a Phonetic Fantasy" by William Thomas Goodge
"I take it you already know" by T. S. Watt
"Enough Is Enough" by Rosemary Chen

Maps Ough (orthography)

Spelling reforms

Because of the unpredictability of the combination, many English spelling reformers have proposed replacing it with more phonetic combinations, some of which have caught on in varying degrees of formal and informal success. Generally, spelling reforms have been more widely accepted in the United States and less so in the Commonwealth. One problem is that a pronunciation with the velar fricative is still found locally in parts of North-East Scotland, where, for example, trough is pronounced .

In April 1984, at its yearly meeting, the Simplified Spelling Society adopted the following reform as its house style:

Shorten ?ough? to ?u? when it is sounded as : through -> thru.
Shorten ?ough? to ?o? when it is sounded as : though -> tho (but doh for dough).
Shorten ?ough? to ?ou? when it is sounded as : bough -> bou, plough -> plou, drought -> drout.
Change ?ough? to ?au? when it is sounded as : ought -> aut, bought -> baut, thought -> thaut.
Change ?ough? to ?of? or ?uf? (depending on pronunciation) when there is the sound : cough -> cof, enough -> enuf, tough -> tuf.

Already standard

hiccup instead of folk etymology hiccough
hock instead of hough (word is rare in the United States)
plow instead of plough (standard in American English)

Already varyingly formal

In the UK, the word dough can also be pronounced , a pronunciation remembered in the spelling in the word duffpudding. Likewise, the word enough can be pronounced or and the spelling enow is an acceptable dialect or poetic spelling (e.g. "And Wilderness is Paradise enow.").

The following spellings are generally considered unacceptable in most of the Commonwealth, but are standard in the United States:

naught instead of nought (standard in the United States, although the word is only used in phrases such as "all for naught") - some archaic uses of nought have been replaced with not
plow instead of plough (standard in the United States and Canada, with plough being occasionally used to refer to the horsedrawn variety)
slew or sluff instead of the two corresponding pronunciations of slough (the former is very common in the United States, the latter much less so, with slough being retained in most cases)
donut instead of doughnut

Common informal

thru instead of through: it is a common abbreviated spelling in the US and standard on road signs, where it conserves space and is quicker to read: e.g., "drive thru" for drive-through and "thru traffic" for "through traffic"
tho and altho instead of though and although (sometimes contracted as tho' and altho')

However, both of these are considered unacceptable in written British English and formal American English, with the exception of in the most casual and informal forms of textual conversation.

Rare informal

coff instead of cough - Koffing
laff instead of laugh (British comic variant larf) - Laffy Taffy
enuff or enuf instead of enough - Tuff Enuff
tuff instead of tough - Tuff Enuff, Tuff Shed
ruff instead of rough (seldom used because it often refers to an onomatopoeia for a dog's bark)

English Spelling for Those Learning English | Superprof

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Comparable combinations

?augh? is orthographically rather similar to ?ough?, but admits much less pronunciation variation:

as in caught, fraught, daughter, slaughter
as in laugh, draught, laughter

The similar ?ow? yields at least five standard pronunciations:

as in cow, now, bow (stoop), sow (pig), row (fight), glower (glare), town, owl, etc.
as in crow, know, bow (weapon), sow (plant), row (bank), lower (let down), own, bowl, etc.
as in knowledge , acknowledge
as in bowie knife
as in bowdlerize (also and )

Dialectal forms also render pronunciations such as winder , yeller for window , yellow , and fella , tomorra for fellow , tomorrow .

A comparable group is ?omb?, which differs however in that, unlike ?ough?, it does not ever represent a single phoneme. ?omb? can be pronounced in at least five ways:

as in bomb (rhymes with Tom)
as in comb , clomb (rhymes with home)
as in tomb , womb (rhymes with gloom)
as in aplomb (rhymes with gum)
as in buncombe , coxcombry

When a syllable is added after the ?omb?, the ?b? is often (but not always) pronounced, resulting in a total of at least eight pronunciations of ?omb?:

as in somber (UK sombre) , rhombus , zombie , combat , wombat , etc.
as in Colombia
as in combine

--but not, for example, in bomber, comber, entombing, etc.

The group ?oth? also has a wide variety of pronunciations, in part because of the two phonemes ( and ) represented in English ?th?. Here are seven different pronunciations:

as in loth, lothario, quoth, sloth (UK), troth
as in apothecary, bothy, broth, brothel, cloth, froth, Goth, moth, sloth (US), wroth
as in nothing
as in behemoth, mammoth
as in betroth, clothe
as in bother
as in another, brother, mother, other, smother

The group ?ong? has at least nine pronunciations, though unlike with ?ough? or ?omb?, context often suggests the correct pronunciation:

as in long, prong, song, strong, thong, tong, wrong
as in longer, Mongol, congress
as in congee, longevity, longitude, pongee
as in among, tongue
as in humongous, monger, mongrel
as in allonge, sponge
as in congratulate
as in congeal, congest
as in mongoose

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia

Ough (orthography)

Senin, 21 Mei 2018