On Wed, 09 Mar 2016 04:27:26 -0000, rbowman wrote:

On 03/08/2016 01:06 PM, Mr Macaw wrote:
But writing accents does not link to pronouncing things differently.
Bough and trough are pronounced differently, you just have to remember
how to pronounce them instead of being told by the accent.

Throw in slough for good measure.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slough

And for hough you just have to roll the dice. Then there was the gym
instructor in high school who asked me how to pronounce my last name.

I'd rather learn a few confusing words than have to write and type accents.

At least English doesn't have gender like France and Germany, that's
crazy! I forget which word it is, but something like "bra" in French is
masculine!

It pops up now and then as in ships and countries. Then there is the
sun and the moon. In English poetic usage the sun is masculine and the
moon is feminine which probably goes back to Latin via the French
invasion. In German it's die Sonne and der Mond, switching genders. Lee
Hollander was a Norse literature scholar that translated a lot of Old
Norse writing. He took a bit of flack for making the sun masculine in
the translation.

But we don't insist on putting "a" or "the" in front of every single noun, and remembering which sex it is.

--
Pat Glenn, weightlifting commentator - "And this is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing!"