2020-10-26: Linguistic Puzzle rak
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People often tell me that French is hard to read because of its
silent letters, and because letters combine to form various
distinct sounds.
This reminds me of a fun fact about the English language: the
combination "ough" makes at least seven distinct sounds:
Word Rhymes with
1. bough how
2. bought rot
3. dough doe
4. hiccough cup
5. hough rock
6. through who
7. tough buff
I would like to pose the following linguistic puzzle:
Which combination of two or more letters has the most
distinct pronunciations in the English language?
My current leader is: "ough" with seven. Please send me an email
if you know of a better answer!
