How to Pronounce “Slough”: Slew? Sluff? Slow? Slug? Slog?
I‘ve read Pilgrim’s Progress several times but still had to look up how to pronounce slough, as in Slough of Despond. Does it rhyme with cow? Do? Cuff?
Have you thought about the letter combination ough? No letter combination in English is more frustrating. It can be pronounced at least nine different ways:
rough (uff)
through (oo)
bough (ow)
cough (off)
dough (oh)
hiccough (up)
fought (aw)
Poughkeepsie (uh)
Coughlin (og)
Slough causes problems because it’s pronounced different ways, depending on meaning. Slough pronounced sluff is the term for shedding skin, like snakes do. Slough meaning wet, swampy ground can be pronounced either sloo or slou (rhymes with cow). Dictionary.com prefers slou, while the American Heritage Dictionary prefers sloo. I’m going with sloo too (because it rhymes with goo, which seems appropriate).
Agfa’s thermal plate offerings with the show included the long-run :Energy Elite, chemistry-free :Azura, and low-chemistry :Amigo products. According to Agfa, :Energy Elite has exceeded its initial performance expectations by consistently running nearly 500,000 impressions without baking and nearly 2million when baked. The plate, which won a 2007 PIA/GATF InterTech Technology Award, gets its extended life from the patented emulsion that tolerates variations in exposure and processing. The technology behind the :Azura and :Amigo plates is ThermoFuse™, by which heat from an infrared laser melts and bonds ultra-fine thermoplastic pearls on the aluminum substrate. This action, says Agfa, creates the picture around the plate with no dependence on chemical developing.
print solutions http://printing-in-china.net
Love this! Whenever I come across the word “slough”, I pause and then say really fast, “SluffSlewSlow”. Glad to know how to say it now!
That’s why I wrote it, Natalie. I had no idea how to pronounce it either, so I researched it. 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to post a nice comment.
No one spells hiccup like Hiccough because it’s ridiculous lol
Also, what’s Coughlin, that’s spoken as Coglin? I only know that as Cofflin?
Hiccup passed hiccough as the more common spelling around 1950. But hiccough is still around. And yes, I have friends named Coughlin who pronounce it COGLIN.http://bit.ly/1E33tAe
My name is usually not said correctly. It rhymes with plow/plough/cow, etc., and is British. There is a town west of London England with the same name that also rhymes with plow. I usually get “slew”, “sluff” or “slow” from those who don’t know me.
thorough (owe)
Thorough is the same sound as dough (oh)
Yes it it. But through and dough are different.
Not in British English. Then it’s almost like “eh”. Thu-reh.
Haha is that Scouse? I would have thought most Brits pronounce it thu-ruh… like borough.
Incidentally, do Americans make borough sound the same as borrow?
No, it’s the same as “Burrow.”
I’m going to pronounce it sloo, because I don’t know what pronouncing it slou means!
That is a bit vague, huh? I’ve edited the post, adding “rhymes with cow” to clarify what I mean by “slou.”
I was trying to avoid using phonetic symbols in this post and the sound OW (as in cow, how, & brow) is impossible to represent clearly. SLOW is obviously pronounced differently. SLOU was my attempt to indicate the pronunciation of SLOUGH that rhymes with COW. But OU has several pronunciations too. Oh well. I hope this change improves clarity. Thanks for mentioning it.
I’ve always wondered this and thank you! I’ve read Little House on the Prairie for the last 25 years and muffled through it to myself until I started reading it to daughter and realized I can’t muffle through words, unless I want to sound uneducated. Oh, and I was pronouncing it like plough, only I said it very fast and out of the corner of my mouth in hopes that she wouldn’t notice!
Glad I could help. 🙂
It might depend on where you’re from. In my part of the world, ‘slough’ rhymes with ‘blue’ and ‘true’, but when I’ve heard British versions of Pilgrim’s Progress, ‘slough’ rhymes with ‘cow’ and ‘wow’.
I love this kinda stuff. Used to play in-the-car games with Jessica & Joshua: How many different ways can you spell to/too/two or blue/blew, etc. And I wonder…if something is delicious, is it good fud or gooed food? I especially liked your “og” example! lol
I do too, Joy. I guess that’s obvious. Thanks for the comment. Great to hear from you!