The Sounds of Language

Abstract

I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble but not you On hiccough, thorough, lough and through. Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word, That looks like beard and sounds like bird. And dead: it's said like bed, not bead – For goodness sake don't call it ‘deed’! Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). T. S. W. quoted in Mackay (1970) Imagine the manager of a small restaurant, a man who has always had trouble with the spelling of unusual words, writing out a sign which he puts in the front window, advertising that they have a new seagh . You see the sign and you decide to ask what kind of new thing this is. When you hear the pronunciation, you recognize the word usually written as chef . How did he arrive at that other spelling? Well, it's very simple, he says. Take the first sound of the word s ure , the middle sound of the word d ea d , and the final sound of the word lau gh . Isn't that a seagh ?