Brain Teasers
The Ploughman
What is so incredible about the sentence below?
A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed, houghed, and hiccoughed.
A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed, houghed, and hiccoughed.
Hint
There are 10 things you would want to notice.Answer
There are 10 occurrences of the letters 'ough' all with a different pronunciation (though I agree it may depend on where you are from).Hide Hint Show Hint Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
Doesnt everyone pronounce dough like you would say the letter "o" in the alphabet, and the same with ScarbourOUGH? please respond at my email, [email protected], because I would like to see what accent pronounces those two words differently. I tried a British accent (I'm American" and i just laughed at myself, so I need some help.
awesome!
Julia, if you are TRYING to sound like the British, then you KNOW that you need some help.
In the UK the common pronunciation is Scar-bur-ah
Hi there Julia (assuming that is your real name),
I just thought I would respond to your question here as I prefer not to use e-mail for Braingle stuff.
I had a laugh when I pictured you trying to pronounce this (sorry, but as you pointed out, it was funny ;) ).
The pronounciations should actually all be different (I think in British english). I realise that different accents may make the answer incorrect which was why I mentioned it in the answer for the teaser. I hope this kinda clarifies it for you.
regards,
D^2.
I just thought I would respond to your question here as I prefer not to use e-mail for Braingle stuff.
I had a laugh when I pictured you trying to pronounce this (sorry, but as you pointed out, it was funny ;) ).
The pronounciations should actually all be different (I think in British english). I realise that different accents may make the answer incorrect which was why I mentioned it in the answer for the teaser. I hope this kinda clarifies it for you.
regards,
D^2.
Oo's 'Enry 'iggins? Really fun teaser!
it's pronounced scarbrah.
Thats real london english
Thats real london english
what is hough ?
it does depend on where you are from. I have a slight southern accent so when I spoke aloud most of them sounded the same.
Easy and pretty obvious. Thanks thOUGH!
there are actually 10 words with the letters "ough" in them
I recognized the repeated ough in the sentence, but didn't get the significance of it. In that regard, I'd have to say "you got me." I can see that there will probably be a lot of comments on this teaser, and that's the object isn't it? Good teaser, thanks for posting.
as an `old` English `girl` myself, where I come from these pronunciations are correct:
rruff,doh,plow,burra,sluff,
coff,huff,hicupped or hicoffed...hope this helps with language barrier.Aren`t we Brits barmy?? LOL.
rruff,doh,plow,burra,sluff,
coff,huff,hicupped or hicoffed...hope this helps with language barrier.Aren`t we Brits barmy?? LOL.
I agree with everything Bradon said. Thanks Dsquared. it was fun.
THat was good, but I didn't know what was important until I was the answer..............
I got tem instances as well. Doesn't anybody care that the answer is wrong?
I find it odd only a couple people counted 10, not 9. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!
I figured the answer was "ough", but i got confused because somewhere it said there were 9, so i dismissed the "ough"s because there are 10. no offense, but who corrects these things???
Easy... I liked it THX
Me too, I saw the repeated use of "ough" words right away, but didn't note that they had different pronunciations. There are 10 words with ough, but I think only nine are pronounced differently. Aren't coughed and hiccoughed pronounced the same? If you were going to pronounce it hiccupped, you would spell that way. I liked it anyway
Is saleprice right about slough being pronounced sluff? I thought it was sloo.
Babyjazz,
You dismissed the "ough" because there were 10 and "somewhere" it said there 9?
The only place it said 9 was in the answer, so if you looked there, you can hardly use that as an excuse.
Who corrects your comments before posting?
It WAS a great puzzle!
You dismissed the "ough" because there were 10 and "somewhere" it said there 9?
The only place it said 9 was in the answer, so if you looked there, you can hardly use that as an excuse.
Who corrects your comments before posting?
It WAS a great puzzle!
There are only 7 widely accepted pronunciations of "ough" Any more than that is just wrong.
Very Easy. Yes, there are ten.
At first I counted 9
Thanks
At first I counted 9
Thanks
Sorry 2nd posting
Some of these pronunciations
ARE actually the same in at least 2 instances.
Some of these pronunciations
ARE actually the same in at least 2 instances.
I counted 10. How do you pronounce 'slough'? (uh-oh, did i just start a pronounciation war? )
And what is it? How about 'houghed'?
Whatever. Clever, I guess....
And what is it? How about 'houghed'?
Whatever. Clever, I guess....
I thought the sentence was great! I knew right away what the connection was - I enjoy interesting information about words. Thanks for posting!
Dr. Seuss wrote a book called
The Tough Cough Ploughs the Dough.
I would love to find that book again.
I have found excerpts, but not the book itself. *sigh*
The Tough Cough Ploughs the Dough.
I would love to find that book again.
I have found excerpts, but not the book itself. *sigh*
Oh, yeah. For pronunciation, see
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
That was easy. But I loved it anyway. Composer, Amazon.com has several copies of that book for .34. Sounds like a deal.
Great teaser.
Monday~
Great teaser.
Monday~
I'm sorry lol but that was incredibly easy .
I will try to do this phonetically -
A ruff-coated, doe-faced, thawtful plowman strode threw the streets of Scarborahh after falling into a slew, he coffed, hocked, and hiccupped.
So we have these sounds -
uff
owe
awe
ou (as in ouch)
ew (as in threw)
ahh
off
ock
up
Which makes the work "slough" redundant to me.
How's that?
A ruff-coated, doe-faced, thawtful plowman strode threw the streets of Scarborahh after falling into a slew, he coffed, hocked, and hiccupped.
So we have these sounds -
uff
owe
awe
ou (as in ouch)
ew (as in threw)
ahh
off
ock
up
Which makes the work "slough" redundant to me.
How's that?
Much confusion! There are 10 occurrences of the syllable "ough," pronounced 9 different ways:
rough (ruff)
dough (doh)
thought (awt)
plough (ow)
[Scarbo]rough (ruh)
slough (sloo)
cough (off)
hough (huff -- same as rough)
[hic]cough (cup)
Not used was slough as in "slough off this mortal coil" which would also be pronounced (sluff).
rough (ruff)
dough (doh)
thought (awt)
plough (ow)
[Scarbo]rough (ruh)
slough (sloo)
cough (off)
hough (huff -- same as rough)
[hic]cough (cup)
Not used was slough as in "slough off this mortal coil" which would also be pronounced (sluff).
My, such controversy. Can't we all just say it was a good teaser?
I do know where you're coming from, though. My teacher has most of it's teachers from Turkey, and even though I'm Russian*, it's hard to understand them! You ought to hear them say 'potatoes'!
*Our phonetics are similar.
I do know where you're coming from, though. My teacher has most of it's teachers from Turkey, and even though I'm Russian*, it's hard to understand them! You ought to hear them say 'potatoes'!
*Our phonetics are similar.
It was easy, but it certainly has been thought provoking. Thanks for posting
How interesting, I would pronounce Scarborough like "borough" like the borough of Manhattan and slough like the Shakespeare quote "sluff". Good teaser, got people talking!!!
I think the "borough" controversy is really an American vs. Brit thing. The Scots I believe pronounce it inbetween 'burrah' and 'boorah' (Edinborough). We American's, however, corrupt it into 'bore-oh' or 'burg'. I am not sure about the British pronunciation, although I think it is basically like the Scot's, but without the brogue.
This of course is just my take on it, I don't claim to be any sort of expert (far from it).
Great teaser!
This of course is just my take on it, I don't claim to be any sort of expert (far from it).
Great teaser!
i agree with bradon... at least it has sparked active conversation
In the words of the one and only 'Count' (from Sesame St)... "ze comments, I larv to Count... Ah ah ah ah aaaaa" 'krrrccckkkoowwww' (attempt at thunder/lightning sound). Thanks for pointing out the error that there are actually 10 'oughs'.... dough!! (as Homer would probably spell it). Great discussion about this, the 'through' is redundant as the sound of the ough in it is repeated in slough as it has a 'sloo' sound. I might add if I haven't already, this teaser came across my path and I just had to share it. It isn't an original of mine - I'm not that cloughy (as in slough).
Canayone explain to me how this could possibly be considered a brain teaser?
Great teaser! Enjoyed reading it.
Learning English as a second language must be terribly confusing for people. So often there is no rhyme or reason to explain the rules for some of our words!
Good luck! Happy Sunday!
Good luck! Happy Sunday!
The only good thing about this is that it created a lot of conversation.
I thought the teaser was educational. Good job And today I hope the Giants whip coach Belacheat and Tom ( I'll get you pregnant and find a new girl) Jerkhead.
Fun teaser. Have a great game day Gayle.
Good teaser, great comments.
nice teaser!
this ought to be enough thinking for this morning though!
this ought to be enough thinking for this morning though!
I LOVE this puzzle. Very clever! And Raisin, love your comment, too!
Reminds me of the "I Love Lucy" episode when Ricky is reading a children's book (Lucy was pregnant) that had several ough words with different pronunciations.
i enjoyed this thoroughly. But enough about me. I have a tough Monday ahead, so I'll be thoughtful & stop writing so that I can make some dough.
Mildly interesting to see that D^2 was able to put all these oughful words in one sentence. As a teaser, not much there.
Pretty interesting comments! As for the answer, I got that right away. V
Actually here in Australia, some of them are pronounced the same.
Pretty 'meh', in my opinion, sorry.
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