I will shortly have to give a talk which will include the word 'sough'.
To my embarrassment I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce it, given
English's lavish way with the construction 'ough'. My late
grandmother's 'Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary' (publ. 1901,
repr. 1931) suggests 'suf', but is there a consensus among those who
know that this is correct rather than 'sof', 'sow' and 'soo' (probably
not as no preceding 'r'?), all of which are possible? Thanks - a minor
thing but I don't wish to destroy my credibility by a
mispronunciation.....
Could I also draw the attention of the forum to a lengthy review in the
19/1/09 issue of 'New Yorker' magazine of the recently published
'Killing for Coal' by Thomas G. Andrews. It is an account of a bloody
(75 killed in all) strike by coal miners against the Colorado Fuel &
Iron Co. in 1914. The article also mentions a couple of other books on
the strike, one of them published in the early '70s by George McGovern
who was of course running for President at the time. Interesting
article, I thought, which includes quite a lot of general background on
the coalfield and its work practices and employee conditions.
David Cross.
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