At least in my dialect/accent of English
I’m sure that’s a regional way to pronounce it. I’ve lived in the south (North Carolina) my whole life and I’ve always heard and pronounced it as the same sound as caught, or aught.
In fact, according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, both aught and ought have the same pronunciation.
Weird. It may sound subtle ( another weird word), but my mouth is definitely doing different things. Ought has a definite diphthong whereas aught may have one, but much more slight and with a more closed mouth.
Languages are weird.
Edit: aught is likely grown out of naught! I mean, that obviously makes sense, just never actually thought about it.
Here’s a fun (related) one. I don’t know to whom to attribute it. I got it from a colleague in grad school.
Ghoti
What does it spell? The English spelling system is so screwy, you can make a decent case that it spells “fish”.
Gh – from enough (f)
o – from women (i)
ti – from nation (sh)
Edit: spacing and one addition
I’m glad I checked Wikipedia before just talking out my ass, as the attribution is less clear than I thought, but the first I heard of this was in Phish circles back in the 90s!
They aren’t silent, they make a faint gutteral sound, like the back of your tongue is being forced down. It’s barely pronounced in English, but it changes the way the vowels sound. It’s more present in German and Dutch languages.
For shits and giggles, I always slightly pronounce it when reading any tragedeigh names. Your daughter is named Breighleigh? Are you part Klingon?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard it pronounced the way you’re describing. I know the sound you mean. Another language that I’m learning and which is influential on place names here has it. I just don’t think I’ve ever heard it used in the English word “ought”. Which dialects of English do you have in mind?
Don’t you pronounce “ought” like awt, with the back of your tongue pressed back in your mouth? Make that “ough” sound, and then a “g” sound. It should almost feel like your gagging. That tongue position is there for most words that use the “gh” phoneme. Sometimes you add an “f” sound because speakers didn’t know how to make the precise sound without gagging, like “cough.” That’s the remnant of the abandoned glottal fricative.
Ok now be honest, have you been sitting by yourself making “awgh” sounds? Gold star if you felt like vomiting at some point.
For me it’s just a vowel sound and a T consonant on the end, the tongue isn’t closing the airway enough to approach a consonant on the vowel sound. The restriction is at the back of the mouth, but it certainly doesn’t feel like gagging
A glottal fricative is the consonant at the start of “happy” or “hello”. The gh I’m thinking of is a voiced velar fricative. The voiced counterpart to the ch in Scottish English “loch” or the German “Buch”
Ok now be honest, have you been sitting by yourself making “awgh” sounds?
Well of course! Few things make me so grateful to live alone as any time I’m trying to figure out the specifics of how I say a thing
Most “silent” letters have some effect on the pronunciation of the word. They aren’t there for no reason.
cough
