hole---a cavity "the grand canyon is a big hole."
whole---complete "the pie was whole before it was eaten."
there---pertaining to a place "hey, look over there!"
their---possessive "their monkeys ran away."
were--- "we were in the park."
where---pertaining to a place "where the hell are we?"
your---possessive "your feet smell."
you're---a conjunction combining the words "you" and "are"...."you're a good footballer!"


this is a short list of words i see being wildly misused on this forum by (primarily) native english speakers.
if you have a gripe about a word you see misused, feel free to post it here.

I don't really see many misused on this forum, but in day-to-day life, a lot of people mix up 'loose' and 'lose'

I also hate it when people use an apostrophe before the 's' on a plural word.

site--- a location
cite---give a reference

prof---short form of professor
proof---evidence

You're hole whole iz big. Their ain't no bigga!

chose--- to select (past tense)
choose--- to select (present tense)

America - a great continent.
USA - a shithole.

(he he - couldn't resist)

I suspect it's still true that the majority of people who post here are very young, as young as 13. They're victims of America's government-run education system, which is as ineffective as almost all public enterprises. They're accustomed to IM, where speed is more important than accuracy, and text messaging, which I believe was invented solely for the purpose of demonstrating that humans are superior to the other apes because it's the one thing we can do with just our thumbs, no matter how badly.

The people here who are obviously adults generally write very well.

America is actually two great continents. Or three continental and subcontinental regions. "NAFTA" does not include Central America and it's not the only common use of that paradigm.

Most of us who live in the USA do not find it to be a shithole. Neither do the millions of foreigners who vote with their feet and immigrate here, quite a few from places that really do qualify for that appellation

I've seen a huge increase in 'wont' used to mean 'want' lately. wonder why?!?

The word "wont" in "... as she is wont to do" doesn't help at all.

Also "loth" vs. "loathe."

I disagree with the people who claim that English is easy to learn just because it doesn't have a lot of inflections to memorize. Our traps are spread out everywhere so they can't be listed neatly in a paradigm.

Even educated people have given up on lie/lay/lain vs. lay/laid/laid.

english is simple, in the respect that our words mostly stay the same when changing tenses, and that there are more rules than exceptions.

in the flemish language, there are about 40 times more exceptions than rules, and they change from city to city...making it an incredibly difficult language to learn, if you have no background in it's parent languages (german/french). i learned it fairly easily, but i am a polyglot of sorts...languages are my second love.

It's driving me crazy! What is? Its usage.

Also people, lern to spel.

fuck it is hard noot to mizz one noew and agen

dunt wory, I forgiv yew.

Site: a place.
Sight: the sense whereby you see.

You: second-person, subject/object pronoun.
U: not a word.

Your: second-person, possessive pronoun.
You're: contraction of "you are".
Ur: not a word.

His: third-person, singular, male, possessive pronoun.
He's: contraction of "he is".

Hell: the place where sinful people supposedly go.
He'll: contraction of "he will".

Have: an auxiliary verb used in the perfect tenses ("I have gone", "she had seen").
Of: a preposition, not used as an auxiliary in the perfect tenses.

A: indefinite article used in front of words beginning with a consonant sound.
An: indefinite article used in front of words beginning with a vowel sound.

Thou: second-person, singular, subject pronoun; compare with "I".
Thee: object pronoun; compare with "me".
Thy: possessive pronoun; compare with "my".
Thine: possessive pronoun; compare with "mine".

it annoys me when people mis-use the word "literally"
ex: it literally blew my head of
ex: i literally died of embarrassment.

Thou; thee; thy; thine? This is not contemporary English, so why mention it?

Are: a form of the verb "to be".
Our: first-person, plural, possessive pronoun.
R: not a word.

To: a preposition suggesting direction, among other things.
Too: an adverb meaning either "also", "excessively", "immensely", or "indeed".
Two: a number.

it annoys me when people mis-use the word "literally"
ex: it literally blew my head of
ex: i literally died of embarrassment.
Me too.

And by the way, thanks for reminding me of another one:

Off: a preposition, the opposite of "on"; pronounced "ahff".
Of: a preposition, not the opposite of "on"; pronounced "uhv".

Thou; thee; thy; thine? This is not contemporary English, so why mention it?
It is contemporary for a few conservative dialects of English, although they aren't widespread or well-known. But, I get what you mean.

Why mention them? Because when people try to use them to sound Victorian, they often use them incorrectly. Like when people say "thee are". It's just like saying "me is". It's extremely irritating.

hole---a cavity "the grand canyon is a big hole."
whole---complete "the pie was whole before it was eaten."
there---pertaining to a place "hey, look over there!"
their---possessive "their monkeys ran away."
were--- "we were in the park."
where---pertaining to a place "where the hell are we?"
your---possessive "your feet smell."
you're---a conjunction combining the words "you" and "are"...."you're a good footballer!"


this is a short list of words i see being wildly misused on this forum by (primarily) native english speakers.
if you have a gripe about a word you see misused, feel free to post it here.
Singular word misusage isn't what gripes me when hanging out here.

It's the presumption of the ability to string two or more words together to suggest meaning that get's me wondering much of the time.

me is filled with coffee.

-(e)s: the third-person, singular, present-tense ending for most verbs; also the plural ending for most nouns.
-'s: the possessive ending for most nouns.

Gets: third-person, singular, present-tense form of the verb "to get".
Get's: not a word.

Thou, thee, thy, thine. It is contemporary for a few conservative dialects of English, although they aren't widespread or well-known. But, I get what you mean. Why mention them? Because when people try to use them to sound Victorian, they often use them incorrectly. Like when people say "thee are". It's just like saying "me is". It's extremely irritating.The Quakers talk that way, or at least they did forty years ago the last time I heard Quakers talking in dialect. They dropped "thou" and use "thee" for both nominative and accusative. I don't know where that came from but it's plausible since we did the same thing with "you." Originally "ye" was nominative and "you" was accusative. We dropped "ye" and use "you" for both. The Quakers also use "are" for the second person singular, so they say "thee are" instead of "thou art."

Even in those days they never spoke that way except at home. In public they said "you" like everybody else.

The Victorian Era was roughly the period from 1840 to 1900. You have to go back a lot further into the past to find "thou" in standard English. You probably meant the Elizabethan Era, Shakespeare's time, around 1500. They used it correctly, "Thou art."

Americans I know enjoy saying "would of", as in "I would of done it". If this is not a new level of stupidity then maybe I need to read more.

While we're at it, would anyone like to join in and rant on the prolific (litote!) use of the quotative like?

the fucked up thing is...the english language is by far the easiest language in which to express oneself properly....
and it is the native speakers that massacre the language.
UGH!!!!!

Americans I know enjoy saying "would of", as in "I would of done it". If this is not a new level of stupidity then maybe I need to read more.

While we're at it, would anyone like to join in and rant on the prolific (litote!) use of the quotative like?
excellent observation.
"would have" would be the proper usage.

Americans I know enjoy saying "would of", as in "I would of done it". If this is not a new level of stupidity then maybe I need to read more.In informal speech we almost always use the perfectly respectable contraction would've. Same for could've, should've, must've. We expand that schwa represented by the apostrophe into a full vowel when trying to speak more clearly but not more formally. From there it's just a natural step of back-formation to hear a syllable that sounds just like of and unconsciously expand it into the word of. This is just the English language in evolution, the reason that we don't use the cumbersome syntax of Thomas Jefferson any more. Since it's hardly more than a noise word, a place holder, it doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence at all so I have no problem with it.While we're at it, would anyone like to join in and rant on the prolific (litote!) use of the quotative like?In one of its usages it's an unconscious expression of the need to have a spoken quotation mark. When you say out loud, "He said Suzie's mom is a bitch," I don't know whether he actually used those words or he said she is "hard to get along with" and that was your edit. If I were dating Suzie's mom it would be an important difference. When I hear you say, "He's like, Suzie's mom is a bitch," I can hear the quotation mark.

I don't understand the reference to litotes, which by the way is both singular and plural.the fucked up thing is...the english language is by far the easiest language in which to express oneself properly....Your love of your native language is noted, but how many others do you know well enough to make this comparison? As always I rush to the defense of Chinese. Stripped of the clutter of inflections and prepositions that lost their meaning in the Bronze Age, Chinese has the advantage of typically being able to express any thought in fewer syllables than any other language I'm familiar with. This allows one to add more words and increase the amount of information, or speak more slowly and reduce the chance of misunderstanding.and it is the native speakers that massacre the language.The same thing is said about Spanish, French and Polish. When there are wrenching changes in technology, culture, politics or all three, language goes through wrenching changes of its own.

The Quakers talk that way, or at least they did forty years ago the last time I heard Quakers talking in dialect. They dropped "thou" and use "thee" for both nominative and accusative. I don't know where that came from but it's plausible since we did the same thing with "you." Originally "ye" was nominative and "you" was accusative. We dropped "ye" and use "you" for both. The Quakers also use "are" for the second person singular, so they say "thee are" instead of "thou art."
I had heard about some group exhibiting a change in the paradigm for 'thou' similar to that of 'ye'. I can't recall whether or not I knew of the dropping of 'art' in favor of 'are'.

The Victorian Era was roughly the period from 1840 to 1900. You have to go back a lot further into the past to find "thou" in standard English. You probably meant the Elizabethan Era, Shakespeare's time, around 1500. They used it correctly, "Thou art."
Yes, I believe that was what I meant. I got some things mixed up while writing the post so quickly, I guess. :o

Since it's hardly more than a noise word, a place holder, it doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence at all so I have no problem with it.
I do. To me, it just makes the person seem so uneducated when they use 'of' in place of 'have'. Although I do understand what you mean.

Your love of your native language is noted, but how many others do you know well enough to make this comparison?
i speak: Flemish-Dutch (dont start, spuriousmonkey...*raises fist*), spanish, english (obviously), biblical hebrew, arabic, french, and russian (badly..still learning...i could survive, but not discuss art, in moscow).
i took a course in mandarin chinese when i was in high school, but i retained VERY little of the material...i was too busy smoking pot, mostly.

of all these languages, the only one i wouldnt feel comfortable saying i am fluent with is russian.....i still find english to be the easiest to master...

now, some folks would say that this fact makes english "inferior", but i see it in the opposite light....it has less "bells and whistles" attached to simple statements, therefore making it a more efficient use of breath.

maybe this is just because it is my native language, but most europeans i meet tend to agree with me that english is an extremely simple language, in the scheme of things.

The same thing is said about Spanish, French and Polish. When there are wrenching changes in technology, culture, politics or all three, language goes through wrenching changes of its own.
i generally think of it as more a result of the "super-value-meal" packaging of our public schools.

i could go on and on about this....i must stop myself. it is 4 in the morning, and i need sleep.

goodnight, my doozer terrorizing friend.

duz anywun wont to discuss ebonix?

and, no, i do not want to talk about who the primary speakers of it are. :mad:

of all these languages, the only one i wouldnt feel comfortable saying i am fluent with is russian.
Really? Not Hebrew? That's what I would've guessed, judging from what you've told me.

now, some folks would say that this fact makes english "inferior", but i see it in the opposite light....it has less "bells and whistles" attached to simple statements, therefore making it a more efficient use of breath.

maybe this is just because it is my native language, but most europeans i meet tend to agree with me that english is an extremely simple language, in the scheme of things.
It would make sense that they think so. English is pretty analytical, relying on word order to show the relationships among words, relative to most European languages I'm aware of, which are more synthetic.

duz anywun wont to discuss ebonix?

and, no, i do not want to talk about who the primary speakers of it are. :mad:
I don't know a whole lot about AAVE. I should probably read about it.

most europeans i meet tend to agree with me that english is an extremely simple language, in the scheme of things.Well of course. Unless you're talking about a Hungarian, Finn, Estonian or Basque, they all speak Indo-European languages too. They all have the same paradigm of "parts of speech" -- nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, some even add articles. And perhaps I've forgotten a couple. This forces us to fit our thoughts into rigid structures that were developed about four thousand years ago. The expression of relationships, in particular, is highly constrained by the tiny set of prepositions which has no effective mechanism for expansion. Within the Indo-European family, English stands out for at least being relatively liberated from the even more constraining Stone Age paradigm of inflections. (Does anybody speak Swedish? I think it comes close.) Compared to Russian, German, Greek or Spanish, English grammar is a breeze.

But not compared to Chinese. No tense, number, gender, person. No bewildering array of "parts of speech," just nouns and verbs and a thimbleful of particles which do more parsing than anything else. Relationships are expressed by nouns and verbs just like any other concept. If you have a new relationship to express because you just invented nuclear physics or discovered existentialism, you can build a new compound verb for it instead of trying to decide whether "in" or "at" is the least confusing.

And Chinese gets the prize for brevity. Translate any English sentence into Chinese and odds are that you'll end up with 30 percent fewer syllables.i took a course in mandarin chinese when i was in high school, but i retained VERY little of the material...i was too busy smoking pot, mostly.
English does indeed have fewer "bells and whistles" than the languages you're familiar with. Unfortunately you weren't paying attention to the one language you could have learned that blows English away. :)

Miss use of "to and "too" along with "your" and "you're" pisses me off.....especially when some smart people I know do it.

Americans I know enjoy saying "would of", as in "I would of done it". If this is not a new level of stupidity then maybe I need to read more.The problem with that is that, after a glottal stop (the D), no voiceless glottal fricative is going to be audible (even if it is indeed present). It would slow down speech too much. Since the two sounds come out of the same part of the throat, the H in "have" will be heard as the opening of the glottis after the D in "would."

So it isn't really that people are dumb, and they "say it wrong," it's just that it's difficult to enunciate it correctly when talking at full speed.

We don't prounouce that D as a glottal stop in American English. But the results are just as hopeless. We end up having to aspirate a voiced stop and say the DH of the Indic languages, and we just can't do it. No one here can say dharma correctly even though it was the name of a character in a popular TV show. (I never watched it but I assume she was the daughter of a pair of Flower Children.) We don't even say Buddha right.

We don't prounouce that D as a glottal stop in American English.We do if it's the end of a sentence, or before any other reasonable pause.

No one here can say dharma correctly even though it was the name of a character in a popular TV show. (I never watched it but I assume she was the daughter of a pair of Flower Children.)Hey, I remember that show! I used to love it, but then I saw every episode at least three times, and it got so old. By the way, what is the "proper" way to say it, if we're all saying it wrong?

Within the Indo-European family, English stands out for at least being relatively liberated from the even more constraining Stone Age paradigm of inflections. (Does anybody speak Swedish? I think it comes close.)
I've seen verb charts for the Scandinavian languages, and seen how simple their verbs appear to be: Person is not distinguished at all like it still is in the present tense in English. If that's any indication, these languages are fairly simple.

Chinese is indeed the epitome of analytic languages. An added benefit is a fairly simple sound repertoire and an almost completely straight-forward Romanized spelling.

It's a shame though that it's a member of a language family entirely unrelated to the Indo-European family. Tones are such a strange concept for English speakers. Chinese grammar doesn't share all the fundamental IE grammatical structures we're used to handling in the other mainstream languages, which happen to be predominately IE. Sino-Tibetan languages share little wordstock if any at all with IE languages, meaning we must learn words which bear no resemblance at all with English words — not so with languages even as distantly related as Russian, where at least some words are recognizeable. Furthermore, the writing system is extremely intricate, and it doesn't help any that there's no other writing system like it that we know of.

Concerning one comment of yours, I think it's worth mentioning that a native speaker told me personal pronouns and some nouns for people can be made plural by adding 们 (men). Also, I've come to discover that, at least in the past, 他 was not the only character that said tā 'he/she/it'. There used to be a character specifically for 'he', another for 'she', and yet another for 'it'. Except for these exceptions, that's entirely correct: no tense, number, gender, or person (unless you wanna be a stickler for details and point out the pronouns).

So it isn't really that people are dumb, and they "say it wrong," it's just that it's difficult to enunciate it correctly when talking at full speed.
I agree, but I believe he was talking about writing.

By the way, what is the "proper" way to say it, if we're all saying it wrong?
Judging by what Fraggle said, and also judging by the spelling of the word, I think the D should be aspirated. We're saying it wrong because there exists no aspirated D in the English language's repertoire of phonemes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspiration_%28phonetics%29

I agree, but I believe he was talking about writing.Oh, good point! :o The word "say" threw me off.

We're saying it wrong because there exists no aspirated D in the English language's repertoire of phonemes.There does, to a limited extent, in certain phonemic combinations. And in that case, nobody could possibly say it correctly, becuase the D is a voiced stop consonant, and can't really be aspirated. Right?

There does, to a limited extent, in certain phonemic combinations. And in that case, nobody could possibly say it correctly, becuase the D is a voiced stop consonant, and can't really be aspirated. Right?
It can. Just, it's such a subtle distinction, and one made in so few languages that an average English speaker might be aware of, that it's not a distinction we're used to. So for us, it's difficult to create a voiced, aspirated plosive.

Also, I'm only aware of aspiration in voiceless plosives in English. Which phonemic combinations were you thinking of?

I've seen verb charts for the Scandinavian languages, and seen how simple their verbs appear to be: Person is not distinguished at all like it still is in the present tense in English. If that's any indication, these languages are fairly simple.

Maybe for the Swedish related languages. Not for Finnish.


Minä puhun Suomea.
Sinä puhut Suomea.
Hän puhuu Suomean (no difference between him and her)
Me puhumme Suomea.
etc.

The nice thing about Finnish however is that you pronounce it exacly how it is written. It's also the difficult thing, because you have to be very precise in your pronounciation.

Really? Not Hebrew? That's what I would've guessed, judging from what you've told me.

read it again, more closely. :)
i said that i am NOT fluent in russian...im trying, though!

Unfortunately you weren't paying attention to the one language you could have learned that blows English away. :)

my lady and i just registered this morning for chinese classes this autumn, at your behest.

and i promise to smoke less weed before i go.

:D

duz anywun wont to discuss ebonix?


In what context? It's just another pattern/dialect. It doesn't follow the rules set by communication in proper English, so it wouldn't really belong in this discussion.

I was about to compare it to cajun-speak, but someone at wikipedia already did it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English

In what context? It's just another pattern/dialect. It doesn't follow the rules set by communication in proper English, so it wouldn't really belong in this discussion.

I was about to compare it to cajun-speak, but someone at wikipedia already did it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English

hey thanks for the link! i was actually being playful. :D most of the people who speak it actually justify using it as an official dialect of the english language. i was wondering if it actually had a chance at becoming recognized since so many people actually use it. kind of like "wanna" and "ain't". i wanted to know what you guys thought about that.

:D

I've seen verb charts for the Scandinavian languages, and seen how simple their verbs appear to be: Person is not distinguished at all like it still is in the present tense in English. If that's any indication, these languages are fairly simple.Good for them.Chinese is indeed the epitome of analytic languages. An added benefit is a fairly simple sound repertoire and an almost completely straight-forward Romanized spelling. It's a shame though that it's a member of a language family entirely unrelated to the Indo-European family.Put that one on hold. The latest research has found a list of about fifty cognates in all the "Eurasiatic" languages. It could only be done with massively parallel computer processing, with sixty thousand years of phonetic and vocabulary shifts. Next project is to find some with the other family, the sub-Saharan African languages. If it's discovered that language arose before the human diaspora rather than independently in separated populations, it will suggest that language was the key technology that made the planning and execution of that diaspora possible. No, I haven't got a URL for that and I can't imagine why I didn't bookmark it. I must have read it in one of those magazines only dentists subscribe to.Tones are such a strange concept for English speakers.And they have an interesting effect on the speakers. In Chinese it's very difficult to express how you feel with your tone of voice, because the tones are phonemic. You can talk louder or you can shift your entire spectrum to a higher or lower pitch, but you can't get those "subtle" tones that express feelings--you know, the ones only women really understand. You have to actually say what you mean! What a concept.Chinese grammar doesn't share all the fundamental IE grammatical structures we're used to handling in the other mainstream languages, which happen to be predominately IE.It has nouns and verbs, which are all we need, and it shares the subject-verb-object order that makes at least anglophones comfortable. English speakers tend to think of the stative verbs as adjectives since they precede their nouns, an additional comfort. it's Sino-Tibetan languages share little wordstock if any at all with IE languages, meaning we must learn words which bear no resemblance at all with English words — not so with languages even as distantly related as Russian, where at least some words are recognizeable.Only academic words. If you try to pick up a Slavic language by conversational immersion, it will be a long time before you run into words like respublik, which is a borrowing rather than a cognate anyway.Furthermore, the writing system is extremely intricate, and it doesn't help any that there's no other writing system like it that we know of.I guarantee that will be replaced before this century is over. The Vietnamese and Koreans already did it. The Japanese will probably be the last holdouts. They love tradition, especially if it makes life just a tiny bit more difficult.Concerning one comment of yours, I think it's worth mentioning that a native speaker told me personal pronouns and some nouns for people can be made plural by adding ? (men).Yes, but it's not an inflection, it's a word. I haven't got a dictionary handy but it means something like "group."Also, I've come to discover that, at least in the past, ? was not the only character that said t? 'he/she/it'. There used to be a character specifically for 'he', another for 'she', and yet another for 'it'.I didn't learn one for "it." The one for "she" is "he" with the ren ("person") radical replaced by nyu ("female"). It is strictly a device of formal writing and has no analog in the spoken language.Except for these exceptions, that's entirely correct: no tense, number, gender, or person (unless you wanna be a stickler for details and point out the pronouns).And that is the beauty of Chinese. If the person is important, you just say the pronoun (or just repeat the key words in its original referent) instead of remembering how to conjugate a verb. The same with tense. If you really need to make it clear that the action took place yesterday, you just say "yesterday," which has only two syllables in Chinese.Judging by what Fraggle said, and also judging by the spelling of the word, I think the D should be aspirated. We're saying it wrong because there exists no aspirated D in the English language's repertoire of phonemes.Yes. Most of us aren't even conscious of aspiration so it's a difficult point to make.

Compare the T in "top" with the T in "stop." Notice the little puff of air in "top." Or if you don't feel it, hold a tissue in front of your mouth and you'll see it. The Indic peoples can do that with a D. Hardly any of us can.

In both dharma and buddha, there should be a puff of air after the D. You can do it with buddha by saying it slowly as BOOD-HAH, but I bet you can't do it with dharma.

read it again, more closely. :)
i said that i am NOT fluent in russian...im trying, though!
I read the post in question several times before I responded to it, trying to make sense of it, but I didn't see the "nt" at the end of "wouldnt". Perhaps start using apostrophes, and my brain won't blend your words together like it did. :p

Someone mentioned Cajun. I'd love to learn to speak some Cajun French (after learning Parisian, perhaps). As for English, I'd love to be able to speak British and Australian English pretty convincingly. I'm fascinated by the Yorkshire accent, as well as Jamaican Creole.

Which accents and dialects are you guys interested in?

Put that one on hold. The latest research has found a list of about fifty cognates in all the "Eurasiatic" languages.
Oh yeah, I heard about that and considered making a passing mention of it. I just thought it went without saying. :o

If it's discovered that language arose before the human diaspora rather than independently in separated populations, it will suggest that language was the key technology that made the planning and execution of that diaspora possible.
I hadn't heard about that before.

No, I haven't got a URL for that and I can't imagine why I didn't bookmark it. I must have read it in one of those magazines only dentists subscribe to.
I think I once bookmarked a site talking about a proposed language superfamily along the lines of what you mention. I remember following a link from there and seeing a chart comparing words for 'one', 'finger', and 'to point' from several language families. But since then I did stuff to my computer, and the original file for my bookmarks that it would be on is stuffed away in some folder. I'll look for the bookmark later, if I remember.

Yes, but it's not an inflection, it's a word. I haven't got a dictionary handy but it means something like "group."
I had always thought it got attatched to the word as an inflection because I saw it written that way in pinyin. I guess I should work harder to forget about how Indo-European languages work, eh?

I didn't learn one for "it."
I believe it uses the 'cow' radical.

I read the post in question several times before I responded to it, trying to make sense of it, but I didn't see the "nt" at the end of "wouldnt". Perhaps start using apostrophes, and my brain won't blend your words together like it did. :p

i am vehemently opposed to my shift key....in case you never noticed.

i am vehemently opposed to my shift key....in case you never noticed.
There is no need for the Shift key to get the apostrophe... :bugeye:

this is really bad

thought
though
tough

all "ough" but different sounds

There is no need for the Shift key to get the apostrophe... :bugeye:
shut up.
:cool:

this is really bad

thought
though
tough

all "ough" but different sounds
Through. (oo)
Plough. (ow)
McGloughlin. (off)
Edinburough. (g)
Slough. (uff)
Bought. (aw)
Cough. (off)
Hiccough. (up)

How about lough (ock). But is it fair to include Scots dialect? Over here we pronounce McGloughlin like McLachlan, no matter how it's spelled, which gives us another one, (akh). But we spell it "hiccup" so we lose one. And we thought Edinborough was (o) just like the boroughs of New York City.

Through. (oo)
Edinburough. (g)

And we thought Edinborough ...

Edinburgh.

---