Speaking 'properly' & the French

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Joe Bento" <joseph at k...> wrote:

Joe:
> Yes but...
> 
> Bow can be pronounced two different ways as well. If you tie a bow 
> on a present, it's "b-OO(long O)"  Acknowledging your audience 
> it's "b-au"
> 
> Bough is a homophone to bow (to audience).  I wouldn't think it 
> proper to pronounce bough as "b long o, though that might vary by 
> region or country.  And yet I say the words myself, there seems to 
> be a slightly different infliction between bow and bough - don't 
> know how to explain that one.

Geoff:
I would see no difference in sound between bow (to audience) and bough. 
To my knowledge there is only one pronunciation of bough in UK English.

Another dual pronunciation -ow is row. Row (long o)=to propel a boat, 
to stand items in a line or row (rhyming with bough)=to have a argument.

Mark you, when you start looking at the -ough words or words with -ough-
in them, you open a real can of worms because they fall into several 
different pronunciation groups. Sort the pips out of the following:

bough, slough
cough, enough
dough
fought, ought
lough (the Irish lake)
rough, tough
through

That's seven possibilities. What have I missed?

In passing, have you read the book which I was reading in Reading?
:-)

Have fun.