The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine
different ways. The following sentence contains them all:
"A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

Amazing, LadyBeth. I wonder if all areas of the U.S., as well as our Brits, agree. I agree with 8 different pronunciations--I pronounce "cough" and "hiccough" the same, I think. Since I say "hiccup", I am not real sure.

I'm off to get a cough of tea.

Oh, Beth! I love your sentence to remember them all! (And for the record, I say hiccup!)

Here is a poem I found years ago, that contains some of the intricacies of the English language, including the ones you brought up here.

ENGLISH

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
When couldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
But I give a boot - would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be nicknamed kese?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!
So our English, I think you will all agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk it when I was five,
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five!

Brava, Morgan! Great poem, and English must be a bear to learn. Then, we have all the accents to contend with!

As I have indicated on the board recently, if I make a mistake, don't hesitate to correct me. Unfortunately, I am not infallible (though, I have often wondered about Shufitz, and I know arnie is!)

According to Jerry in a private message:
"'brava' is an adjective describing something of feminine gender as 'brave.'

¡Bravo! is an interjection meaning 'Well done! etc' It ends with 'o' regardless of the sex or gender of the addressee."

The funny part is--the reason I wrote "brava" was because recently I received an e-mail from a gentleman congratulating me on a letter I had written--and he wrote "brava!"; so I thought he had it right. Mea Culpa!

On the contrary, Kalleh! Now that I have checked the Dictionary, I see that it was I who erred.

BRAVA

To a speaker of Spanish it sounds ridiculous. As if it were an over compensation for political incorrectness with the spectators shouting to the performer, "You're a wild unruly unkempt untamed woman."

The dictionary attributes it not to Spanish but to Italian, and io non parlo niente d'italiano.

Punta del Este, Uruguay, is a peninsula with the wild South Atlantic to the east side (Playa Brava) and the calm waters of the broad Río de la Plata on the west (Playa Mansa).

With a little bit of luck, other Spanish speakers will confirm or refute what I say.

~~~ jerry

[This message was edited by jerry thomas on Mon Mar 10th, 2003 at 18:54.]

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

In Spanish this is an adjective with meanings having the sense of "wild"; "courageous"; "rugged" etc.
Because Spanish adjectives agree with the nouns they describe, the example quoted of "Paya Brava"means wild or rugged beach. Playa is feminine and so it's "brava". In Spain itself there is a well-known holiday area called the "Costa Brava" - although now its wildness is now caused mainly by the number of drunken holidamakers wandering the beaches!

If the noun is masculine the adjective would be bravo.

Bravo, on its own, is an interjection meaning something like "hurrah!"

Richard English

But, Richard, what about Jerry's link to "brava" meaning to express approval for a woman, especially after a performance? The term now sounds correct in the original way the gentleman used it to me, as well as in the way I used it. In your opinion was it incorrectly used?

That link suggests that the word is Italian - a language I don't speak. Maybe that's what it means in Italian.

I was respondonding to Jerry's call to Spanish speakers and certainly in Spanish you would say "Bravo" as an exclamation - never "Brava".

Richard English

Dictionary.com 's Translator says:

In Italian: Brava! Bravo!

In English: Good! Bravo!

Thanks, Richard.

I hope we all agree that it's best to avoid using foreign words whose meaning is questionable, since our own language has an ample vocabulary.

~~~ jerry

(QUOTE) I hope we all agree that it's best to avoid using foreign words whose meaning is questionable, since our own language has an ample vocabulary.

Tongue in your cheek there, Jerry? If our foreparents had thought that way, our own vocabulary wouldn't be so ample -- and we'd have less to talk about here.

And speaking of forefathers who enriched our vocabulary, why haven't any of you brits done a double-dactyl on William the Conqueror?

quote:

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I hope we all agree that it's best to avoid using foreign words whose meaning is questionable, since our own language has an ample vocabulary.

~~~ jerry

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Au contraire, the mot juste is de rigueur.

Vescere bracis meis.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

When the English tongue we speak,
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard sounds not the same as heard.
Cord is different from word:
Cow is cow but low is low;
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose and dose and lose;
And think of goose and yet of choose.
Think of comb and tomb and bomb.
Doll and roll, and home and some.
And since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said, I pray?
Think of blood and food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sounds and letters don't agree.

quote:

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Tongue in your cheek there, Jerry? If our foreparents had thought that way, our own vocabulary wouldn't be so ample -- and we'd have less to talk about here.

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[/TONGUE-IN-CHEEK MODE] Quite right, Shufitz !

At last count, the English language had borrowed about ten thousand words from French.

Also there are the cowboy words from the Mexican vaqueros ( those who work with the vacas cows ....hence, buckaroos!) and "lariat" from la reata ... and "hoosegow" from juzgado (judged)... and more.

~~~ jerry

[This message was edited by jerry thomas on Sat Mar 15th, 2003 at 18:42.]

One last note on "brava". Since my AHD does not even include "brava", I am dumping it! However, it does appear that "bravo" has Italian, rather than Spanish roots. In the course of making this momentous decision to dump a word from my vocabulary, I found a word that I, at least, had never heard of: "bravura", meaning a brilliant technique or style in a musical performance. I also found that "bravo" can mean a "hired killer" so perhaps we had better watch how we use it!

quote:

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The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways.

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It gets worse. Sometimes a single 'ough'-word can be pronounced two different ways, depending on its meaning:

slough (rhymes with glue): a depression or hollow, usually filled with deep mud or mire
slough (rhymes with fluff): to discard as undesirable or unfavorable; to slough off old friends

Slough (pronounced to rhyme with cow) is also the name of a town in West London, known for little except its proximity to Heathrow Airport and its boring banality.

John Betjemen, in 1937, hated the place so much that he wrote a famous poem about it, the first verse of which goes:

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

It's quite a dark poem for Betjemen, whose works are usually amusing and light-hearted. It was just that he hated the creeping urbanisation and the jerry-built houses of the immediate pre-war era.

Richard English

Quoting shufitz: slough (rhymes with fluff): to discard as undesirable or unfavorable; to slough off old friends

I slough dead skin off my feet, but it rhymes with off. Is this the same word, or a regional pronunciation difference?