Slough.
I saw it in the Eye Vigil thread and it triggered something. I have a pet theory that words ending in "ough" were created as a means of mental torture. How many different ways are there to pronounce this ending and are there any rules or patterns? Help me out here, sort these by "ough" sound.
although, anough, aswough, athrough, betrough, borough, bough, breakthrough, breastplough, brough, butterbough, chincough, chough, clough, cough, dough, enough, enrough, entrough, farborough, feedthrough, fireplough, floorthrough, forethough, frough, furlough, grough, harborough, harbrough, headborough, herbrough, hiccough, hough, interborough, jough, kinkcough, lough, ough, outborough, outthrough, overrough, pentrough, plough, prefurlough, replough, rough, scarborough, shough, skeough, slough, snowplough, sough, sourdough, superthorough, swough, therethrough, thirdborough, thorough, though, through, tough, triborough, trough, turlough, turnplough, unborough, underbough, unplough, unrough, unthorough, untough, upplough, washtrough, wherethrough, wough, yarborough,
"Bough Wough," says the dough.
Hansbrough
Triggered! Triggered! Yalisababishwa!
You're right...those words are a form of mental torture.
My foreign language teacher in high school used to say that English was actually the hardest language to learn, and used the -ough words as an example.
/ow/: bough, plough
/off/: cough, slough, trough
/oh/: dough, furlough, though
/uff/: enough, rough, tough
/ooh/: through
Are there any more ways to pronounce -ough?
There are, but they are archaic. Hiccough was the original spelling of the word hiccup; therefore "ough" was pronounced as "up." Lough was the original spelling of the highland word "loch," as in "Loch Lomond," and it was pronounced the same way people currently pronounce loch.
Over the years there have been several made-up sentences designed to display the wide variety of pronunciations. Here is one of them: "Plough through enough dough to make you cough or hiccough."
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
I don't know if it's fair to use some of the archaic words as examples. I just tried using Google's tool for tracking word usage through 2 centuries of digitized writing and it claims only one result for "enrough."
I think for something to actually qualify as an English word it has to have more usage than, for example, embiggen or cromulent.
This would make a great skit for SNL Jeopardy.
Jimmy Fallon: "I'll take COLORS for $200, Alex."
Alex (Will): "Color that rhymes with *URPLE."
Jimmy Fallon: "What is LIGHT URPLE?"
(or something like that)
(groan? laugh?)
[redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.