Talk:Pronunciation

ough

I was afraid when I put in examples of the different pronunciations of ough that someone would dispute them. I'm not fluent in the various pronunciation-symbologies, so here is my layman's attempt at listing how I, an Aussie, pronounce each of these words:

rough	ruff
through	throo
bough	as in how
cough	koff
thorough	thuruh
thought	thort
though	thow, as in low
hiccough	hikkkup
dough	dow, as in low

As you can see, for me thorough is different to though, and dough is the same as though.

(I've concentrated on the pronunciation of ough and have not distinguished between soft and hard ths.)

Philip J. Rayment 22:56, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Ah, I wasn't sure if it was a regional thing, so I had consulted dictionary.com to make sure before making the edit. Dictionary.com lists only one acceptable (American) pronunciation for both "thorough" and "though", which ends in the same vowel sequence (in IPA too). This is the same sequence for "dough" as well, and it's the one that rhymes with "low". But now that you've written out how you pronounce "thorough" in Australia, I can imagine how there would be that pronunciation as well. So maybe there should be a clarification that they are all different in Australian English, but in American English only 7 are distinct. (actually, I'd go a step further, since I've never seen an American use the spelling "hiccough" for "hiccup"). Thanks for taking the time to write a detailed clarification, Philip. -Foxtrot 23:29, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

I'd like to list the pronunciations using the pronunciation guide in the (Aussie) Macquarie Dictionary, but they use characters used by the International Phonetic Association[1] that don't appear to be in a standard character set. If I can find a way to represent these (e.g. html entities), I might still list those pronunciations. Philip J. Rayment 02:46, 1 October 2008 (EDT)