OUGH - there's a thoroughly rough thought!

The English language has many interesting facets. It is this that makes it fascinating.

One area of interest is pronunciation and one simple sequence of four letters has an amazing range of pronunciations, depending on the word they are in.

The sequence is O-U-G-H.

Here are a number of words that use this sequence and you'll know how to say them:

rough
through
thorough (as in UK English: e.g. thurra)
thorough (as in US English: e.g. thurro)
bough
thought
cough
dough

That's eight. Have I missed any?

What a great language. It must be terrible to learn!

See our website at WriteItClearly.com.