Seven ways to pronounce ough:

• dough
• tough
• hiccough
• bough
• ought
• cough
• through

A letter to the London Times, Sept. 20, 1934:

Sir,

‘A rough-coated dough-faced ploughman strode coughing and hiccoughing through the streets of Scarborough’ used to be set as a spelling-test at my prep school at Crowborough in the middle nineties.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

H. Pirie-Gordon

“If the English language made any sense,” wrote Doug Larson, “lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.”