So I've been pronouncing "trough" incorrectly for a long time, apparently.
I just naturally thought it was pronounced "trow" and not the correct "troff".
It's understandable. The "ough" has a similar sound in "dough" and "furlough" and "though".
I can't think of any other words that end in "ough" and have that 'off sound. Does anyone have other examples, or could explain the different etymologies of the two different pronounciations of the "ough" sound?
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Now, how did I miss this post, of all things?
ReplyDeleteDon't forget 'cough' and 'rough'--and 'laugh' is a similar case. That -ugh spelling represented a sound that is spelled 'ch' in German, as in Bach, a word for a stream.
In some dialects of Middle English it was pronounced -ff, and it survives in a few words but disappeared as a sound in the rest.
One place where both forms survive is in an uncommon word, 'slough' which when it means to shed, as in 'a snake sloughs off it skin' it's 'sluff' but in the name of the English town Slough (where the UK Office series is set) it rhymes with 'how'. When it means a low muddy patch of land, I don't actually know how to pronounce it.
Neat! So if the -ff pronunciation comes from old english, where does the "ow" as in plough pronunciation come from?
ReplyDeleteWell, Middle English is old, and it's English, but Old English is a different beast. I'm not sure on the exact chronology--spelling wasn't fixed in Chaucer's day (people spelled things the way they said them), and didn't seem to be to perfectly regular even as late a Shakespeare.
ReplyDeleteBut the different vowels, that could just be dialect difference again, or it could be divergent change. Since they chose 'ou' for all the -ough words, they probably had a diphthong (o+u = ow) at the time, so that would be in keeping with the 'plough' pronunciaction. But if the first vowel of the diphthong (the 'ahh' part) disappears, you're left with 'oo' part, and you get the 'through' pronunciation.
And vowels spelled 'o' seem to easily switch between 'ah' and 'oh' in English ('hot' vs. 'go') so that can lead us to the 'cough' vowel.