I've always spelled it hiccup. When I saw hiccough in print, I thought it was a cutesy new portmanteau meaning a cross between a hiccup and a cough

@lookoutforchris

Жыл бұрын

If you’re American it’s because of spelling reform after the Revolution. Plow for instance instead of Plough.

@colly6022

Жыл бұрын

@@lookoutforchris in canada ive always seen hiccough spelled hiccup, and plough spelled plough.

@RandomPlaceHolderName

Жыл бұрын

@@colly6022 Yup. We just get a mishmash of the two.

@donkensler

Жыл бұрын

@@colly6022 Yeah, Canadians are in some suspended animation between the Brits and us Yanks. E.g., "tyre", "labour", "colour".

@keithklassen5320

Жыл бұрын

@@donkensler Most of us actually spell it "tire", but I do tend to use the "our" spellings most of the time.

My students and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this video!

I am from Italy, a nation that uses the roman alphabet and roman spelling; this is a blessing: if a person says a word you have never heard you can write it down all the same without error or find it on the vocabulary. when I was trying to teach English to my little niece I told her firstly "see this words? they are like people faces: you just have to learn the name of each face".

@janechayka7416

Жыл бұрын

I love this comparison! With your permission, I'll use it with my students, as well :)

@DouglasGross6022

Жыл бұрын

Pronunciation in English is _simple_ - memorize each word. I didn't say it was _easy._

@Carlowski

Жыл бұрын

Italian living in Scotland here, could not agree more! If one wants the acme of spelling absurdity, don't look past Scottish nameplaces... e.g. Kilconquhar is pronounced "kee-nyu-khar"

@DouglasGross6022

Жыл бұрын

@@Carlowski Visit Wales! I was in a town that had no vowels in its name.

@Vinemaple

Жыл бұрын

That's actually what neuroscientists say. The brains of people reading English look more like the brains of people reading Chinese than people reading European languages. Except probably Portuguese, which is just as idiosyncratic as English.

I used to be puzzled by the many pronunciations of ea. Compare: Fear, Bear, Heart, Steak, Pearl. Such a common vowel combination, such variety of sounds they make together and one can't ever guess the pronunciation from the writing.

@mr.rocket5835

Жыл бұрын

Past tense Read as well

@simbiant4

Жыл бұрын

@@mr.rocket5835 Feared, Beard, Hearted, Steaked, Pearled. Do not work...

@mr.rocket5835

Жыл бұрын

@@simbiant4 that’s not my point. my point is that past tense read (which is spelled read too) has yet another “ea” sound than fear, bear, etc

@simbiant4

Жыл бұрын

@@mr.rocket5835 I thought you would have gotten the joke in beard. But I guess not.

@shermoore1693

Жыл бұрын

Yes! and Tear (the verb) and tear (the noun). I think we just have to accept the fact that English is a language for the crazy.

This is amazing! All I can think about is: Englisch is a hard language. It can be learned through tough an thorough thought though. I hope thats right. I am a non-native speaker.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Bravough! That's soughperb!

@vigzoptian5504

Жыл бұрын

I had to use a text to speech to read that

@WasickiG

Жыл бұрын

Here’s my take at it: Molten snow fallen from the bough flowed through the trough, though. "That's enough", I thought.

@SuperLittleTyke

Жыл бұрын

@@WasickiG Excellent!

@gary.h.turner

Жыл бұрын

Almost! :- "English", not "Englisch"; "and", not "an"; "that's", not "thats". Otherwise, it's very good!

There is a big upside to the ridiculous English spelling, it brings us entertaining and informative videos such as this one!

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you and thanks for watching! Another upside is that it keeps me from spending my time doing something less constructive (probably binge-eating jaffa cakes).

@allanrichardson9081

Жыл бұрын

Also promotes creativity in ads and merchandising, at least in the USA. A word currently in common use cannot be used alone as a trademark, nor can a phrase in common use, UNLESS it is spelled incorrectly. Hence all the “cremes” and “kremes” in product names. Imitations of foods with a legally and customarily used name cannot be named after the targeted food directly, so modified spellings of their names, such as “chikin” strips, or “meet” pies, are used for fake products. Even IBM got in on this, inventing the terms “byte” and “bubble” for groups of 8 and 4 bits treated as units by processor hardware. These terms spread throughout the industry, but not as trademarks, along with “half word” (16 bits), “fullword” (32 bits), and “double word” (64 bits). Bad spelling = good marketing!

@Veni_Vidi_Vortice

Жыл бұрын

@@RobWords Yes, but are they cakes though, or ought we to think of them as biscuits? Please discuss thoroughly, work through the possiblities and then let us know of your thoughts on the matter. Sorry if this seems a bit naughty but I was taught to be a critical thinker and definitive answers need to be sought for the sake of clarity.

@josearqco

Жыл бұрын

Not only that, English is phonetically amazing and beautiful; quite exotic. So, keep it up that way!

@kathleenking47

Жыл бұрын

Ricky Ricardo did this on I love lucy

I'm a special ed teacher, and I grew up with an English teacher, a word nerd, 2 semi-bilingual parents, and 2 family members with reading disabilities. As a result, I've always been aware English is quirky, but nothing has made me more aware of how weird English is than teaching students with reading disabilities, and nothing has made me more annoyed at my own native language than having a struggling and/or frustrated and/or resigned student ask me why a word is spelled that way, and having no answer but "English is weird like that." I love this channel for at least giving me a better answer for those times.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

I have long wondered how common dyslexia was among, say, Spanish or Turkish speakers. Too, with all our vowel sounds, we make about 44 noises and have only 26 letters, a couple of them redundant, to write them with. Blame those noble old Romans... And that we've had but stopped using 9 other letters, often because they distorted into misreadable forms (thorn, long S) or "damn if we know" (eth).

@Wazkaty

Жыл бұрын

I love the explications for the same reasons! I am this kind of student haha. I'm French and always asked "but why" when I saw "illogical" words. It's tricky too! It is really interesting to understand how the words and meaning were constructed, whatever the language I think it helps a lot to understand the culture

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

@@Wazkaty I remember my first months studying French... all those silent letters, singly and in groups! But they're _systématique_ about it, and once you understand _la systéme,_ it's easier. English, lacking an authoritative Académie, is .ore scattershot.

@Wazkaty

Жыл бұрын

@@w.reidripley1968 haha yes! It is exactly what happened for me! We struggle at school and then we memorize the all "exceptions" , and it's good! But for a foreign language... wow, memorisation is hard. I want to read English litterature and I struggle a bit, too much unknown vocabulary and syntax! I think it's hard in French too, I can feel it because some of my friends can't really read French litterature. It depends on your interests I guess

@Wazkaty

Жыл бұрын

@@w.reidripley1968 A lot of French hate silent letters 😂

I am glad they called it "the great vowel shift" and not" the great vowel movement" .

When you revealed that the spellings reflected their pronunciations at the time, I thought you would walk us through a timeline of when each of these words got their spellings.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

That is honestly what I would have loved to have done and I looked into whether it was possible. But with the information we have, it just isn't. That's probably for the best, because it would take aaaages.

@Cellottia

Жыл бұрын

@@creamwobbly But that's _augh_ though, not _ough_ (oops, how did that 'though' slip through?!)

Oh goodness. I was raised being told there were 6 ways to pronounce our last name. I realized the existence of the 7th around 2015 (thorough 'a'), the 8th around 2018 (hiccough 'up'), and today I learn of the bloomin' 9th (hough 'ock')

@tampazeke4587

Жыл бұрын

I had a friend growing up in Mississippi with the last name Gough. They pronounced it "Gow" (or at least close to that). Of course Mississippians are famous for butchering the proper pronunciations of names (e.g. Brett Favre), so I don't know how accurate that was. We also pronounced Garcia "Garsha". LOL

@derekdurst9984

Жыл бұрын

We have a street in San Francisco...Gough...pronounced "Gawf"!

@ballantynemoyes8019

Жыл бұрын

I grew up in Scotland and we pronounced hough as hoch (same as in loch) - potted hough was a favourite dish.

@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311

Жыл бұрын

😆

@mrkiplingreallywasanexceed8311

Жыл бұрын

@@tampazeke4587 oh God that's awful😆 it's a bit like when, on any American cookery show, I hear the non-word "par-mi-zhan" spoken, which always absolutely sets my teeth on edge! Of course I can respect "aluminum", " 'erbs", "zucchini", and all your rhotic "r"s. - where Americans really enunciate all the "r"s like "burr-gurr" for "burger" where we would say "ber-guh" - although I have noticed that "re-frijj-er-ay-terr" over the last decade or so seems to be gradually getting replaced by our, it has to be said, far more sensible "fridge"😉 There are good reasons for all of the above. But parmezhan is just awful - if that cheese is going to be Anglicised - and there's no reason we should have to call it Parmigiano - why not just par-me-zan? It's just a mistake, substituting the "zh" sound for the "s" in "parmesan" for the "s" sound in "measure" or "pleasure" for absolutely no reason other than nor knowing not to😏 a bit like "coo-de-grah" for "coup-de-grace"...😉

I'm sure there's probably enough material to make a video on the different uses of 'ea' in English. I had a Dutch housemate who would pronounce the English word 'idea' like "eye-dee". Since I knew that in German it's 'Idee', I asked her if it was pronounced that way in Dutch too (they are similar, see * below). She asked me why I asked & I said that I thought she was just saying it the Dutch way. She asked how I said it & I let her know that we enunciate the 'a' at the end. She told me she had thought that the 'ea' in 'idea' rhymed with 'sea'. I replied with something like: "No, but the sea might give you nausEA" Giggles ensued. Anyway. Just an _idea_ for you. 😉 * Phonetic alphabet & English sound equivalents to explain the different pronunciations I was talking about in my anecdote: *idea* (English): īdēə, "eye-dee-ah" or "eye-dear" *Idee* (German): ideé, "ee-deeh" *idee* (Dutch): idee, "ee-dey" My friend's "English" pronunciation: īdē, "eye-dee"

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

That last pronunciation is also heard in countrified speech, mostly in the Old South and out West.

@arkanon8661

Жыл бұрын

ah yes, "phonetic alphabet"

@rhiannon.de.rohan-thomas

Жыл бұрын

@@w.reidripley1968 For context, could you please specify to which country you are referring? (I'm Australian)

@sirknight4981

Жыл бұрын

@@arkanon8661 What?

@QuantumScratcher

Жыл бұрын

@@sirknight4981 it's not the ipa so they're confused as to what "phonetic alphabet" this is

My husband has immigrated to Australia from Brazil and he is pretty good at learning languages (taught himself Greek) but when he becomes baffled by these inconsistencies in English, I'm at a loss to explain why there are so many pronunciations of the same letter groups. These videos are going to go a long way in helping me explain. Thank you so much.

@dizzydaisy909

Жыл бұрын

How's he these days?

Thanks Rob. Now people will know why I pronounce my last name as "Dockerty" and not Dougherty as it is spelled. The ock or awk sound is Gaelic and used in Scotland and Ireland (where the name originates) but usually pronouced using the dough sound in the U.S. In Ireland it is now spelled Doherty and they use the ock sound. The British government changed the original spelling from O'Dochartaigh to Dougherty (1600's) and then to Doherty (1800's). Some people have resurrected the prefix O' which means grandson of.

@Cellottia

Жыл бұрын

How interesting! I've wondered how to pronounce this name when I've come across it. So much history (and politics) wrapped up in one name... Amazing.

@FD-vj6hd

Жыл бұрын

Even ‘Dockerty’ isn’t quite right. It’s more DoCHerty (in the back of your throat) like LoCH Lomond in Scotland.

@biosinger

Жыл бұрын

Here in southern illinois in the US, there are some people in my town with that name. They pronounce it “DOOR-dee,” like the front door.

@SlothLinn

Жыл бұрын

It's interesting how the original spelling of O'Dochartaigh seems to fit better with our current view of spelling/ pronunciation. I would be much more likely to say that correct, than your current spelling which I'm afraid I would attempted to say "dough - erty", even if it would have sounded wrong - that's just how I read it x')

@clwest3538

Жыл бұрын

How interesting! My great-grandmother's maiden name was Doherty - She pronounced it Doar'-ty where the oa combo sounded like you start to say O but ended ended with an A (almost like a breath sound or caught in throat) The way she said it the word sounded very Irish even though she was born in TX in 1800's (actually, family has been in US, from what I can find, since 1700's) ... The family now just pronounce Dar'ty - which sounds very southern.

It's because in Old English the gh (old English form generally just h) was pronounced like modern Dutch gutteral g sound. Through and thorough are essentially the same word, it's just that in 'through' the r has migrated to the front of the vowel instead of behind it. The Old English was essentially thurh (gutteral ending) like the modern German durch...also a gutteral ending. The same process gives us related place name elements like Bury and borough. These were both originally burh...like the German burg.

@donkensler

Жыл бұрын

Oh yeah, the "gh" "ch" ending English speakers have such a problem with because it sounds as if you're clearing your throat.

@mennolente4807

Жыл бұрын

Hey! That's what I was about to point out! Glad I've checked other comments first. One thing to add: Thurh through → deur → door → door → through And the circle is complete.

@mennolente4807

Жыл бұрын

Sorry, I switched deur and door accidentally

@HenryLoenwind

Жыл бұрын

@@donkensler Which is doubly funny when you realise that half the time the sound is supposed to be made in the middle of the tongue. Like in the aforementioned durch and bur(g/ch)... ;)

@g.c.5065

Жыл бұрын

@@mennolente4807 you can edit a comment, you don't have to write under it. And I don't understand the remark.

Many years ago there was a skit involving Lucille Ball and her husband Ricky Riccardo on her TV program where he was reading a bedtime story to their child. It had lots of those OUGH words and Ricky goofed every time he encountered one and was corrected by Lucy. It was hilarious as he made those attempts using the last correction on the next word.

What this taught me is how incredible children are at learning things. To have learned all of this stuff effortlessly by the age of 4 or 5 or whatever is pretty insane.

One of the challenges of British English spellings is that they reflect the point at which they were set into print and then became 'fixed'. Pronunciation continued to evolve, but the spelling was fixed. This explains not only the oddities of 'ough' but also the silent 'k' in words such as knife and knight, plus silent 'gh' in words again like knight, night, right etc.

@richg7163

Жыл бұрын

In rural SW Scotland some people still pronounce the gh in night, right, light with the guttural CH sound, like nicht, richt, licht.

@mastertrams

Жыл бұрын

Oh, Jay Foreman had a good scene relating to this and the name "Worcester". Hold on, let's see if I can find it Link: kzread.info/dash/bejne/p42C3NOghZrUkZc.html

@steveslight9312

Жыл бұрын

@@richg7163 my surname causes some confusion with foreigners.

@harrybrown4952

Жыл бұрын

@@steveslight9312 Is it literally S-light or Slit??? Sorry if I get it wrong

@steveslight9312

Жыл бұрын

@@harrybrown4952 it is SLIGHT as in sleight of hand. In old textural documents it can be slite. My family can be traced back to 1600s.

Last week I was just talking about “OUGH” to one of my Norwegian colleagues. It started by him mentioning “schwa”, and talking about English like a professor. I said I had no idea what he was talking about. As a native English speaker I have never studied it, because I grew up with it. It is very interesting to hear the viewpoint of those that actually study the language to find what we are saying and why.

@WGGplant

Жыл бұрын

yeah english is strang in not just our spellings, but also in the fact we reduce pretty much every vowel whenever possible. which only makes spelling harder. which i would argue makes it harder for native speakers to remember spelling than foreign speakers. as many foreign speakers are taught to enunciate almost every sound in english. but native speakers done have a big difference bt the shwa'd 'a' 'e' 'u' 'o' (sometimes i can be distinguished but its still a pretty subtle change) how are we supposed to remember how to spell a word when we could literally replace any vowel with any other vowel and it still pretty much sound the same?

Really enjoy your vids, English born and bred, my spelling is terrible! It's the history aspect I most enjoy, and always engaging. Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you so much! I wish I knew about the Great Vowel Shift when I was teaching ESL.I empathized with my students who were trying to learn English pronunciation and spelling. It just didn't make sense. Now it does, somewhat 🙂

You should've mentioned that the root cause of various pronunciations was gradual weakening of /x/ sound, spelled gh. During this process, different ways of compensation were applied, for example lengthening of the preceding vowel (as in night or thought) or using /f/ (as enough) as an approximate. BTW, traces of occasional mixing of /f/ and /x/ can be found in Germanic languages (achter vs. after, kracht vs. Kraft). There are also Slavic examples like Polish kafel vs. German Kachel, adding also /xf/ and /k/ flavours.

@BrBill

Жыл бұрын

Add the Dutch G, and it becomes even cloudier.

@cigmorfil4101

Жыл бұрын

@@BrBill Like this? kzread.info/dash/bejne/c6CrsZKxptCZlto.html

@jorantsegkan9000

Жыл бұрын

Add the Swedish sj, skj, sk before front vowels, and you get the funny combined sound /xfw/ in many dialects.

@jorriffhdhtrsegg

Жыл бұрын

Scandanavian Gs are half disappeared too and Don't use the /x/ whilst in Dutch a G is /x/

@jorantsegkan9000

Жыл бұрын

@@jorriffhdhtrsegg Hæ?! Hvilket skandinaviske språk kan du da? Sj, skj, kä, kö, ky, på svensk høres som x, f, og w, alle sammen.

Currently I teach ESL and I'm quite happy to have a video I can refer my students to whenever they complain about the -ough situation. It complete shortens my answer to -It's not my fault.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

The tough coughs as he ploughs through the dough. Sooner or later we should mention the poem _The Chaos._

Haha, I forgot furlough! I was talking to a Polish friend about how ridiculous English spelling and our pronunciation of our own words can seem, and gave him all the "ough" words I could think of. Including rough (ruff), cough (koff), chough (chuff), bough (bow) plough (plow) sough (sow), ouch (owch) pouch (powch), through (throo) thorough (thurrah?) borough (burrah?) etc etc. Actually, I've just realised that if something hit you in the stomach, "ough" would seem a more onomatopoeic way to spell the noise you make rather than oof! Wait! My Firefox wants to correct plough, but doesn't offer plow! 🤦‍♂😂 And obviously it doesn't know that a chough is a large Raven like bird either. Then of course there is a bird called a Ruff (large Sandpiper), where the male has a ring of display feathers around his neck. Fashionable humans copied this and killed many different birds so they could make themselves a "ruff". 😔

Love your videos, mate. You delve into some very interesting rabbit holes. As a non-native speaker of English, I find these curiosities tremendously intriguing. However, I wouldn't bother apologising for them. The English language is fascinating precisely because of its inconsistencies. Your historical perspective sheds a wonderful light on these processes. Moreover, as an Englishman, you have far bigger and more influential evil deeds of the empire to deal with. By no means am I implying that you're personally to blame for any of your country's atrocities. Privilege and colonialism are tricky things. And all this would take you down a path that is obviously not the focus of this channel. Just food for thought from a follower below the equator.

I’m here from Matt Gray. Good stuff!

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

I ❤ Matt G

@RobertVolker

3 жыл бұрын

Apparently he ❤️ you too. He gave you a shoutout and card toward the end of his q&a video.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

@@RobertVolker I saw! Can't believe he's never done apple bobbing.

Some names: Brighton - Charles Laughton - Marlborough - Marlboro cigarettes - Edinburgh - Chris de Burgh - Borough of Westminster - the burghers of Calais - Hillsborough - Brough Superiour

After 78 years of trying to figure it all ought, knowing that even YOU can't explain it is somewhat of a comfort. Thank you. I am now one of your biggest fans.

you are now becoming my second-best english teacher in the world. the first one is "let them talk tv".

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

Happy to come second to Let Them Talk TV. Big fan myself.

A native Russian speaker told me once that the English spelling that broke her spirit was judge. I lived in the US as a child, so for me, English spelling is "normal". But in fact, it's far from logical and definitely not phonetical. Thanks for the entertaining video.

@mgntstr

Жыл бұрын

English is close to Kanji. 😅😅

@julietardos5044

Жыл бұрын

Juj.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

I'm told "strengths" can be tough for Russian speakers too. They have experience of consonant clusters but the alien 'th' sound in the middle of one gives trouble. Troughble?

@nicholasvinen

Жыл бұрын

Yeah it probably should be judje!

@alexeypopov314

Жыл бұрын

@@w.reidripley1968 After I learned how to say "th" which is alien to Russian phonetics the rest was a breeze. But you should try to say out loud Armenian last name Mkrtchyan (Мкртчян) who was a great actor. I can say his name easily but no Westerner I know can.

The Chaos is an excellent poem detailing the weirdness of English Pronunciation. My favorite reading of it is by Lindybeige

There’s an episode of I Love Lucy in which Ricky Ricardo, a Spanish speaker from Cuba, is reading a book to Lucy, and in the book are the words bough, rough, through, and cough. Which he pronounces boogies, row(as in cow), thruff, and coo. The joke here being that Lucy would correct his pronunciation of each word, and Ricky would pronounce the following word as she pronounced the prior one

Knowing German helps immensely in understanding what’s behind the odd spellings. For example the word “laughter” makes so much more sense when compared to the German “lauchter”.

When I was in the UK, I travelled by myself via bus, coach, and train. I would occasionally want to take public transport to a place with an "ough" in the name and where I would have to speak to a person instead of a machine to purchase the ticket. Since I never knew how to say those place names and am far more neurotic than most Americans, my options were to either to walk or to find a place nearby without the "ough" in the name and get a ticket there. At the time, it was annoying, but now I remember the "ough" game fondly.

@g.c.5065

Жыл бұрын

Were you able to get this neuroticism under control ?

@misterwhyte

Жыл бұрын

Why not just write it down for the clerk to read it?

@gevansmd1

Жыл бұрын

@@misterwhyte clerk or clark?

@misterwhyte

Жыл бұрын

@@gevansmd1 A clerk is an employee in a store, a bank, etc.

@gevansmd1

Жыл бұрын

@@misterwhyte I've heard it pronounced clark in English movies.

I’m so here for a Great Vowel Shift video!

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Then let's DO IT!

"Loughborough" Thank you. Made my day.

Congrats on finally getting around to making a video on the Great Vowel Shift, Rob

Yup, the complicated spellings are an area where English is really difficult. Another is the stress within individual words and sentences, if a learner wants to sound somewhat like a native speaker. I learnt French and Italian, and the latter greatly impressed me when i found that it is, as far as i recall, spelt in a perfectly phonetic way. You must learn some pronunciation rules, but then the words are said just as they are written. However there is one additional difficulty in knowing which syllable the stress falls on.

@WreckItRolfe

Жыл бұрын

It doesn't help that America has some strange stresses - usually towards the start. (e.g. Making 'Adult' sound like 'A dolt')

@Mixer-he2wb

Жыл бұрын

Neither does it help when one hears different pronunciations across during regions of the US.

@milantrcka121

Жыл бұрын

@@Mixer-he2wb Regional dialects abound in many countries. In Europe, back in the day, a village may have had a different dialect than a village some 50 km distant. Even in London - George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, Eliza and Prof. Higgins.

@mgntstr

Жыл бұрын

like fall... it is using two ll's to tell the reader the vocal is short, but it is pronounced with a long a. Finnish is perfectly phonetical and they hate learning English like no other I know of.

@helenswan705

Жыл бұрын

I notice this with American readers of English audiobooks

i really didn't notice these to be mind boggling until now seeing your content. growing up learning english at school it was never really an issue that me and the other kids thought as an issue.

I Love Lucy played on the "ough" sound.

@bpark222

Жыл бұрын

That’s why little Ricky was only allowed to speak Spanish until he was 18.

Wonderful. The late Herb Caen published a poem about a major thoroughfare in San Francisco: "In San Francisco, driving through I came upon a street named Gough; Allergic to a name like Gough, I there began to sneeze and cough; I parked my car beneath a bough That overhung the street sign "Gough," And rested there awhile, although I did not like the street named Gough. No, I did not like the street named Gough About which this is quite enough." BTW, most of us say it rhymes with "cough." A major street in the District of Columbia is Loughboro Road. The cringe-worthy recording on the bus pronounces the first syllable as if it were "Lo."

Wow… as an English language learner for 40+ yrs, I am still learning… yr videos, on top of being funny, are informative little gems… T H A N K Y O U

it's honestly fascinating learning the reasons why English is such a messed up & complicated language

Now I know why I hate the "ough" phonetic group. I could never find the pattern. The "ight" pattern is simple compared to the "ough" pattern; it came from Anglo-Saxon. This video has clarified the insanity of "ough" . I sure do appreciate this.

As a dyslexic the spelling of my native English, has always caused me no end of problems.

Wonderful video. I have been aware of this phenomenon for 30 years, and always wondered as to the explanation. Thank you. And I'm grateful that you came from Loughborough - that might be just the reason why you are the first person to offer me an explanation of this ;)

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

Very happy to help

@baldyhead

Жыл бұрын

I was very surprised when he said he was from near Loughborough because he has lost the accent completely. Here we pronounce it "Luffbruh".

When people say that finnish language is the hardest language in the world, I say that is still way easier than english, for this exact reason. There is no way of actually know how anything is pronaunced if you haven't heard it being said in english. In finnish you can always know, since everything only ever have one way of being pronaunced.

@mikeharrison1868

Жыл бұрын

I'd say Finnish is the hardest European language. I'd say Japanese is the hardest language for anyone except a Chinese person to learn, because there's the difficulty of learning the Kanji plus a somewhat difficult grammar on top. (Chinese has no declensions etc.) Arabic is also quite difficult. Writing is alphabetic, but only long vowels are written down, and the way some (but not all) letters squish into each other within words is quite complicated at first. And the grammar is different from indo-european grammars. I'd recommend the trio to aspiring linguists...

@misterwhyte

Жыл бұрын

@@mikeharrison1868 On the contrary, Japanese is a fairly easy language. It is highly regular and since it's part of the agglutinative languages, if you know the most common prefixes and suffixes, you can build complex sentences fairly quickly. There are also no variation in the pronunciation, unlike many other languages. As for the reading/writing part, it's clearly the most difficult part, but first it has a simplified alphabet that only contains 96 characters, and second you "only" need to know 1500 to 2000 kanjis to be able to read a newspaper or a novel, where Chinese requires twice as much (over 3500 symbols). If Japanese was one day to only use its simplified alphabet, it would honestly be one of the easiest language to learn.

@mikeharrison1868

Жыл бұрын

@@misterwhyte I don't have any personal experience of Japanese. But I understand there's like six or seven levels of politeness, depending on who's addressing whom. Foreigners can get away with it, but, I understand, it would be very hard to properly master it all in the same way Japanesee people have. I agree about pronunciation, and about katakana and hiragana. Kanji is complicated by the fact that characters were borrowed from the Chinese at different times, with different meanings and pronunciations. Chinese can also have several different pronunciations for characters. Our class cracked up when one of our classmates (Japanese, as it turns out) declared that Chinese people were lovely to eat, rather than that they love to eat!

@mike-williams

Жыл бұрын

French is worse, words full of silent letters, verbs in multiple spellings for different cases but pronounced the same

@blackalien6873

Жыл бұрын

@@mike-williams French is actually pretty easy to learn. At least for a native English speaker. I thought myself how to read and write the language.

Have always used -ough to show how crazy English is for non English speakers find it... thanks to your video I now have even more examples 😁

Thank you SO MUCH!!! I teach English to Italians and, like you, feel obliged to apologize on behalf of the English people for the spelling of these (and other) words.

Found you thanks to Matt Grey. Just binged all of your videos, they're lovely little videos. Really enjoyed the short format. Thank you!

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

This single comment makes them all worthwhile. Thank you!

I thought you were going to mention the link of when Old English (pronounced more similarly to modern German at the time) was being spoken in England, and the French took over...but they had a lot of trouble with the GH and CH sounds, again, similar to what you'd hear today in German. So they would either change it to something that they could pronounce: Enough (GenUG in German), or would leave it silent, as in DauGHter (ToCHter in German)

@alanthomas2064

Жыл бұрын

Norman's also couldn't pronounce the SH sound as in Shropshire! So they called it Salop( horrible)

@OntarioTrafficMan

Жыл бұрын

Or "Dochter" in Dutch, still pronounced as it's spelt in English.

I grew up in Bakersfield, literally Baker’s Field, named after Colonel Thomas Baker who allowed travelers to and from Los Angeles to camp in his field.

Forgive my American spelling. My linguistics class scratched the surface of how these vowels have evolved phonically to have so many pronunciations. Your show fascinates me because you go into English's worldwide evolution discussing how certain regions have modernized or done away with vocabulary and revolutionized grammar rules.

This is interesting. Since I learned German, and learned about their 'ch' sound, I figured that the English equivalent had been 'gh'. And from that I could see how over time that sound (which doesn't really exist in modern English aside from the "ch" in "Loch Ness") could morph differently for each word. So you have (G) "ghost" and "ghoul" at the start of words, (silent) "though"/"through"/"thought", (F) "cough", "enough", and (K) "loch".

@rogervanaman6739

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, that's definitely the case for some -gh- words, I'm not sure about any of the -ough- words, though (maybe cough?). Knight comes to mind, the gh and the k were at one point pronounced.

@dansouthlondon9873

Жыл бұрын

The 'ch' in Loch is a tricky one, because English doesn't have that sound and is usually pronounced incorrectly by most (usually pronounced like 'lock' without using the back of the throat). The word is Scottish Gaelic and the sound exists in other Gaelic languages.

@sebastianjoseph2828

Жыл бұрын

@@dansouthlondon9873 You're right most people pronounce "loch" as "lock". Is the proper pronunciation close to the German or Yiddish "Ch" sound? That's what I always assumed.

@dansouthlondon9873

Жыл бұрын

@@sebastianjoseph2828 I'm not 100% sure, as I'm not Scottish or able to speak any Gaelic, but I think it's *slightly* different. I think that the 'ch' in gaelic languages uses the back of the throat more. If you want a common example, I think it's quite close to a sound used in Scouse accents. I'm sure someone will correct me lol

@rogervanaman6739

Жыл бұрын

@@sebastianjoseph2828 That is my understanding. Also, the IPA article on wikipedia gives loch and Chanukah as examples of the sound.

Looking into it (skimming Wiktionary), all instances appear to have at least been /Vx/ in Old English, but not all the same vowels even then. They seem to have come pretty close to each other in Middle/Early Modern English when all of this orthography was being finalised and then split every which way. Insane how quickly people change the way they speak.

My American friend taught me to correctly say: the tough coughs as he ploughs the dough (from Dr. SEUSS). Mindboggling! Greetings from 🇩🇪

Yank here that taught English as a second language class. Students invariably asked about ‘ough’. My answer at the time was many word (most) words entered English determined the pronunciation. Nice to know I was somewhat correct. Something to stick in my bag for future classes.

I feel that, before the Great Vowel Shift, English must have been easier to learn for Spanish speaking (maybe Italian too) like myself. Perhaps, back then, vowel pronunciations made more sense to us. This was usually the problem most of my friends growing up had when trying to learn English. Some people can't adjust their brains to pronouncing vowels differently and the result is a Spanish-like English, if it makes any sense.

@ghenulo

Жыл бұрын

My sister took German in college and couldn't get a grasp on its vowels being pronounced differently than in English (like how German "die" is pronounced /diː/ instead of /daɪ/). She said that her professor said that a lot of people her age couldn't learn a foreign language, which confused her, as she was still young.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

U alone boasts four different pronunciations and the other vowels aren't far behind. We resolutely eschew diacritical marks to help the learner, too.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

So kids learning Reading get introduced to long vowels and short vowels right away, and how to look at a word for clues (maybe) which ones. The English method is a bit clumsy, but it mostly works, apart from words that are a direct lift from Greek. I do wish we wouldn't affect the short I in the middle of 'divisive,' though. Isn't 'margarine' enough?

@calhutch3185

Жыл бұрын

when studying Manarin in Taiwan with a Korean, a German, a Texan, and myself from Western US. I realized most accent problems come from vowells. Consonants are more set, whereas vowells are highly variable from blending one sound to the next and different languages seem to love to find different points of inflection to land on.

I have one theory: As in modern English 'oo' is used for 'u' sound (put), French used 'ou' for 'u'. U is derived from Y, which all come from Greek Y, which sounded like German Ü. For Greeks to write down sound 'u', they would write 'ΟΥ', and French copied it. In Cyrillic, sound 'u' used to be written as 'оу', latter simplified to just 'у'. Fun fact, Russia letter for 'ju' (sound like you) used to be written as 'IOY', but now it is 'Ю'. As for GH, it used to represent sound like CH in words like 'loch', it is hard H sound, usually IPA 'x'. GH was put there to differentiate spelling from CH used in 'check'. For transcription of Slavic language which use that hard sound 'H', modern English uses KH. So, plough used to be pluH, enough used be enuH, through used to be thruH, cough used to be kuH, and so on...

@ccheyenne

Жыл бұрын

I totally buy this! It feels plausible at least for a large group of these

Tough, though, through, thorough.....add 1 letter and that changes the sound of the part that doesn't change. In the Netherlands we have the Green Booklet with a new edition every now and then with new rules for spelling of dutch words so we don't spell words the way we did, say, 100 years ago or even 40 years ago. So, our words are spelled mostly phonetic so we don't have word like ghoti (pronounced: fish).

Reminds me of the famous "Never make fun of someone if they mispronounce a word. It means they learned it by reading.". And boy, this is so true. I pronounced "tough" and "enough" [tewg] and [enug] for years until I finally heard them spoken...

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

I imagine that sounded adorable.

Thanks for this. I teach ESL and have wondered this many times. I assumed it was down to the different languages that composed English. This makes more sense. By the way, how do you know all these things?

My favourite example of this is that there’s a video game called dark souls, and it has two characters with "ough" in the name: smough and gough. Neither of their names are ever pronounced in-game, but the community has pretty consistently agreed that they are pronounced "smouh" (to rhyme with though) and "goff" (to rhyme with cough).

The "ough" in the suffix "-ought" (basically before the letter "t") is always pronounced "awt", so there's one pattern.

That madness is the beauty of English!

Slough is a great one because each way to pronounce it means a different thing entirely! It's either a city in England, a verb, or a body of water and each has a different ough

@VernCrisler

Жыл бұрын

How is SLOUGH of despond pronounced?

@wardsdotnet

Жыл бұрын

@@VernCrisler I don't think I've ever heard that phrase

@VernCrisler

Жыл бұрын

@@wardsdotnet From Pilgrim's Progress; refers to a swampy area. Memory aid: "You cannot plow in a slough"....

@wardsdotnet

Жыл бұрын

@@VernCrisler that's sloo

@joshuaharper372

Жыл бұрын

I think most would rhyme it with too, but a minority rhyme it with plough/plow and how.

Loving your videos! They are so interesting, informative, and a delight to listen to. I can't help feeling that you're divulging deep secrets of some esoteric society of linguists. Thanks for explaining the idiocy of the word hiccough! That one has always puzzled me. I'm not sure if this is apocryphal or if one of my parents actually once met an Australian who enquired the name to 'Loogabarooga' - which in the context of Australian makes just as much sense as its actual pronunciation. Regardless of the origins, it's an anecdote I've never forgotten. I'm here for a video on the Great Vowel Shift!

I've always loved the fact that changing one letter can change the meaning of these words: tough though through Hahahahaha...

I'm Indonesian. Apology accepted, Rob. used to say that the irregularities in English is more than the regulars

I love your films, very interesting and thought provoking. I have augh in the middle of my surname that has been a constant source of mispronunciation, although the spelling of my name is an anglicised version of a Gaelic name.

I had no idea that the British pronunciation of thorough ended in an “uh” sound instead of a round “oh.” Cool!

@jorriffhdhtrsegg

Жыл бұрын

Americans put long 'oh' everywhere don't they! Same with place name words ending -borough, sometimes abbreviated -boro which doesn't make any more sense to us that use an -uh sound

American here. Was taught in school at an early age that the spelling was “hiccough” and have spelled it that way ever since. Did not realize until this video that “hiccup” is now preferred!

@baldyhead

Жыл бұрын

I'm British, well into my 50s and I've only known it as hiccup, so I was surprised that is supposedly American spelling and hiccough is British.

@margaretford1011

Жыл бұрын

@@baldyhead I just happen to have a 1959 version of the shorter Oxford English Dictionary on my bookshelf. It clearly has “hiccup” as the preferred spelling. It says that “hiccough” is a variant but that that variant came about in error due to someone thinking it is related to “cough”.

Rob, I really LOVE it! Please go on!

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Gilles!

The old spelling of English sounds too similar to Spanish one (and well, any latin language for the matter). I would love to hear all english words as if someone from Spain didn't know how to say them hehe. It was a very interesting video for me to learn about quite a lot lf stuff

I like QUITE that variation of English, beautiful language. Loughborough! 🥰🥰👍👍

A great introduction! Thank you for compiling the different words with "ough".

I love this video - I've shown it when teaching students about homophones. I hope you make more content soon I love your channel!

@RobWords

2 жыл бұрын

That's so, so lovely to hear! And yes, more is in the pipeline 😊

Interesting! As usual..

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Glad you think so! Thanks for watching.

I grew up and went to school in a small town in Texas with spelling one of my worst classes, I would often bring up the inconsistency in pronunciation of ough. When I pointed this out to teachers after being told to sound out the words I had trouble spelling, I was told I was being difficult and not trying hard enough. Just imagine me with my Texas accent, I had little to no chance of pronouncing words correctly enough to sound them out for spelling the word correctly. Now 70 years later I find out it wasn’t my fault at all but British twits 500 years before I was born.

👏👏👏👏👏 thanks for clarify this OUGH thing. It really helps a lot, specially me: a non native english speaker.

Only just discovered your channel, which fascinates me. Have you thought of doing a video about place names - or perhaps people's surnames? England is a very fertile hunting ground for peculiar names (geographical as well as personal), whose spellings provide no clue as to pronunciation. For example, except for locals in the relevant vicinities, there are probably very few people in England who would know how to pronounce the name of the North Devon village of Woolfardisworthy. And very few (myself included, until someone told me) who could pronounce the name of the market town in Northumberland which is spelled Alnwick. Answers to these two are: Woolsery (or Woolzery) and Annick.

@MerkhVision

Жыл бұрын

With a lot of British place names, it seems like over time people just got into the habit of saying the names faster and faster, eventually skipping over some parts entirely, ending up with the modern pronunciations that ignore like half of the letters. Funnily enough, most French words are the same way, ignore half the word lol. When you’ve seen enough funky British place names, you get used to what parts they tend to ignore and what parts they usually say. I guessed Alnwick right, but that other one u mentioned was pretty extreme lol. I get it though, since the original name was rather long and a real mouthful lol, makes sense that they’d want to shorten it.

@Cellottia

Жыл бұрын

And Trottiscliffe (Trosley), Meopham (Meppum) Wouldham (Wooldum), Burham (Burrum) in my little bit of Kent... There must be a whole subset of English pronunciation in place names throughout Britain!

The English way of spelling has one great advantage: Once you have learnt a word you can tell at a glance whether it is spelt correctly because you see the word as a whole and it is right or it isn't. This is not the case, in e.g., German where you are supposed to pronounce words as they are written but this doesn't really work the other way around because of double (or triple) letters the letter "ß", pronunciation quirks, and more. I have seen cases of native German speakers whose spelling was better in English than in their own language.

@derekdurst9984

Жыл бұрын

American English = Spelled!

@mquietsch6736

Жыл бұрын

I think that's mainly due to this ridiculous way elementary schools have been teaching writing skills in Germany. The first year they tell the pupils to write as they speak, which results in the strangest spellings since children don't speak very clearly (my son wrote "füa" instead of "für" because he really said so), and after children have got accustomed to this and automated it they get told in their second year that this was all wrong and they now need to use the spelling rules. Like, "wir", "ihr" and "sie" all three have a long "i" and all three are spelt differently. Very many children don't manage to make the jump completely. Both my children took an exceedingly long time. I've heard that now when even elementary school teachers often can't spell correctly any more the education ministries have started to move away from this (sorry) completely idiotic doctrine (no, not really sorry).

@Satori_kun

Жыл бұрын

Speaking for me I can't confirm this hypothesis, writing english without using a translator with spelling correction or build spelling correction like here in this comment section I would be unable to spell some words. Sometimes I know a word because I heard it in a video and have rough idea how its spelled but then struggle with silent letters or the use of an "c" or "s" , "e" vs "i" vs "ie" or some other weird combination that creates eee sound and sometimes I spend more than 10 minutes trying to find out the spelling of a word I only heard with google translator and it is such a pain (even more when it doesn't have an exactly equivalent word in german).

@barbarahouk1983

Жыл бұрын

Satori, I am a native American English speaker who had great difficulty in my youth with spelling. It was worth my time to categorize English words into where they came from. English dictionaries have a key at the beginning of the book that tells you from where the word came. This gives one the clue as to the category its spelling is. Each category has its own spelling rules. I just had problems with "ough" because of the information in this video makes it clear why this phonetic group is so messed up. I hope this helps you.

@sluggo206

7 ай бұрын

I studied German and I didn't encounter this. German spelling is pretty straightforward. One thing in German is there are a wide variety of dialects, basically every town. People learn Standard German in school, which is often very different, especially in northern Germany. So if a kid makes a mistake in spelling, it may be due to interference from their dialect.

The more of your videos I watch, the more I'm glad I learned English as my first language instead of trying to figure this all out later. Hats off to anyone learning English as a second language. This language is a mess 😅.

I'm English and have always spelt Hiccup like an American and never realised! I've also never twigged that about Loughborough :D

Oh, come on, please, explain us much more about The Great Vowel Shift. Of course we all would love to bits to learn more about this amazing topic. I should say you're superb, I cant lie. Thanks

@stevenmonson5149

Жыл бұрын

The black plague for starters ,the poor uneducated had a stronger immunity vs the wealthy well educated, so the poor's phonetic won out over the wealthy educated original parent language pronunciation, that's a short answer.

Even though Im british I spelt it as Hiccup

Dude I hated Language subjects at school. Wish youtube /your channel was around 20 years ago. Honestly I have never thought ill enjoy watching videos about spelling. Thanks

Glad when you mentioned Scotland you remembered to add bagpipe music so people aren't confused with Scotland ,Ethiopia 😂 love the content Rob,words and language fascinate me 👍

@RobWords

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, fair point. I decided not to do it on subsequent videos 🤣 Thanks for watching.

Hellough and thanks for the loughly video! Ough, that was actually kindough smoughth.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

Loughly comment! Yough are welcoughme.

@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078

3 жыл бұрын

@@RobWords Also, I noticed that all the words ending in OUGHT have the same pronunciation; that sounds like a trick to know the pronunciation of many (not all) OUGH words. Or maybe they're actually OUGHT words, which might also make it easier for learners.

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

​@@arthurhenriqued.a.ribeiro2078 I thought we had a breakthrough there, then DROUGHT came to spoil the party... But it seems like there are few enough exceptions to make it a useful guide! Nice one.

@OntarioTrafficMan

Жыл бұрын

*videough

And remember: Shakespeare's sonnets rhyme when pronounced correctly, and at the proper speed. OP, not RP. Lost the difference `twixt "why" and "wherefore (arch.)"; yet, both words persist in Russian. And contrary to what people think, he spoke Early Modern English, not Old English, nor even Middle English. I know people who cannot read a properly written letter from the 1880s, even. Cheers!

You've come up in my feed a number of times. Each time I scrolled right past thinking, "boooring!" Finally gave you a try today. Love the sound of your voice and content. Subscribed.

Great work, Rob ... though you missed at least one Hiberno-English one: "lough" (pronounced identically to the Scottish "loch" -- it also means the same thing: a lake or sea inlet with only a narrow opening to the open ocean. Since you included an exclusively Scottish one derived (I think) from or through Scots Gaelic ("hough"), there's no reason you shouldn't add an Irish one derived from Gaeilge. Especially so since it's used with that spelling far more commonly than "hough" (and not just in proper nouns) and has yet another pronunciation (ending with a Spanish 'j' -- -- as in "reloj"). Interestingly, one of the meanings of "hough" derived from the Irish/Gaelic is headland or promontory, a bit like the opposite of one of the meanings of the word "lough" (the aforementioned inlet)!

Rob please explain the mystery behind the word Worcestershire (sauce) or as a matter of fact other words ending with ‘shire’ :)

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

That's definitely going on the list!

@alfresco8442

3 жыл бұрын

Shire comes from the Old English scir. It's related to modern words such as shear and share, so it denotes a partition, off-cut or division of some kind...in this case what we now call a county, even though we still refer to "the shires". It's kind of like the German word for a division (military or otherwise) is an Abteilung...literally an off-dealing. Deal/share...little difference. Incidentally, the word sheriff comes from a shire reeve...an old official in charge of each shire. It's pretty much just ceremonial these days, but every county still has one.

@tampazeke4587

Жыл бұрын

Worce-ster-shir as opposed to worshester-shire, the way many Americans pronounce it.

@livrowland171

Жыл бұрын

@@tampazeke4587 But normally the sauce is just pronounced wooster sauce

@MerkhVision

Жыл бұрын

@@livrowland171 I think u mean “Wooster-sher sauce” lol

I have my own word: Hiccurp. Ever since I had my Gallbladder removed 20 years ago the phenomena started where it starts with it sounding like a hiccup but ends like a burp. They're random and come with no warning. It's a little embarrassing at times.

@johngavin1175

Жыл бұрын

Do you have hiccfarts as well?

@markstott6689

Жыл бұрын

@John Gavin Thankfully no. However, laughfarts are a rare occurrence.

I'm currently teaching my younger son to read, and I'm often describing why a word might look the way it does because if you say it with a different accent it kind of makes sense.

American here. I was taught to spell hiccough as a child. The spelling soon changed to hiccup. I know I'm switching vowels here, but I was also taught to spell the word for cold breezes and tap beers as draught. Both later shifted to draft. Many spellings have shifted during my lifetime.

@davidfrischknecht8261

Жыл бұрын

I was born in 1979 in the USA and I only learned the newer spellings.

1:54 So, English spelling/pronunciation was more reasonable in the past. I've heard about the printing machine changing the spellings slightly but the vowel shift is new to me (and interesting, and infuriating). Good video by the way!

@RobWords

3 жыл бұрын

If we'd just waited a few short centuries to standardise our spellings, they might have made a little more sense now. "Thank yoo for wotching!"

I taught English to Japanese people while I was stationed there in '02-'06. They always struggled with pronunciation because Japanese is very consistent in its pronunciation, and this was a very tough concept to absorb, for them. I finally made the parallel point that they had a similar issue--in learning kanji. Kids in Japan learn a few kanji per week when in they're in the lower grades, usually something like 25 per week. By the time they graduate high school, they can read about 2,000 of them. And college graduates know about 10,000. Incidentally, those are the numbers in the States for the average HS and college graduates in terms of vocabulary.

@keltzy

Жыл бұрын

I used to feel like kanji and English spelling were very similar in that you can learn the rules that tell you how something is meant to be pronounced, but at a certain point, you kind of just have to know the word. Of course, there are still so many more kanji to learn.

@mal2ksc

Жыл бұрын

At least "how to say it" is a solved problem though, kana are pretty good about that.

@joshuaharper372

Жыл бұрын

Yes, that sounds about right. We would have 15 or 20 spelling words a week in elementary school. English spelling is nearly as frustrating for English speakers as it is for everyone else.

@peterharrison5833

Жыл бұрын

@@joshuaharper372 Yes, you're right. I used to tell my students that English has phonetic rules concerning spelling, but that it followed the rules maybe 40% of the time.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

@@joshuaharper372 ...until you take a school year of phonics. It fills a need in rehearsing the various ways English has to write a phoneme, and which words go with which ways. Phonics made an excellent speller out of me.

i was a kid in the ‘50’s in the New York area. hiccough was the spelling. when i started seeing hiccup, i was thought it was rather gauche. now, it’s normal, although it still feels sort of uneducated. interesting that for thorough you guys say thorah and we say thoroh. you also for says pronounce it say-s and we say sez. yours makes more sense :) my favorite British pronunciation is for Cholmondeley for which you say Chumly. it’s hilarious :) 😋🌷🌱

I feel the last line of the video should be, "And then there are American and Scottish pronunciations." Most notably borough and thorough as burro and thurro. Drouth to drought in my parents' lifetime--apparently it is pronounced drooth in Scotland.

@richg7163

Жыл бұрын

I thought drooth means dryness, or more specifically, thirst.

@w.reidripley1968

Жыл бұрын

Burritough: in fusion cuisine, meat-pie filling wrapped in a flour tortilla. 🤔😁

In addition to hiccup, the US has also reformed plough into plow. We're in the process of simplifying a number of other words with "gh" in them. In addition to "ruff" and "enuff" it's also not uncommon to see "nite" and "lite" though both of those seem to be limited to marketing (and "lite" is *almost* exclusively limited to use in foods for losing weight). "Doughnut" is becoming "donut" but you still make them out of dough.

@crazycrafts5945

Жыл бұрын

no one uses ruff or enuff

@rmdodsonbills

Жыл бұрын

@@crazycrafts5945 Okay, well, I implied that they were common, which they are not. I have seen them both in the wild.

@costakeith9048

Жыл бұрын

@Alex 01 Thru has some currency on signs, where there is limited space. Both on commercial signs as with drive-thru, but also on road signs as well, such as with no thru traffic. But I haven't really seen it used outside that context. As for ruff, that's the sound a dog makes, not an alternative spelling for rough.

@raij465

Жыл бұрын

I’ve never spelled it hiccup, and haven’t seen it written that way. “Thru” drives me crazy, because of the rule “English words don’t end in i, j, u, or v” other than some rule breakers. I have seen ruff, but just assumed that the person using it was a poor speller. Nite and lite are becoming more common, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it’s a very logical way of spelling them, but on the other hand, it just ignores the whole class of words which use ‘igh’ and looks very stupid in print.

@anthonyjackson280

Жыл бұрын

Unless 'ruff' is referring to a frilled edging or collar.