RE: English Spelling

From: Marco.Cimarosti@icl.com
Date: Fri Dec 10 1999 - 14:56:50 EST


Somebody wrote:
> bough (rhymes with now)
> dough (rhymes with go)
> enough (rhymes with cuff)
> cough (rhymes with off)
> bought (rhymes with taut)
> through (rhymes with sue)
> hough (rhymes with lock, probably unique)
> hiccough (rhymes with up, probably unique, also spelled
> "hiccup")
> thorough (schwa vowel or short o, depending on dialect)

This is an awful writing system!!!

Does Unicode really need to support this strange language? Does someone
really need to use this script on computers? Who? Where? Why? How large is
their users base? Did they submit a proper proposal? Why dodn't they use
Cyrillic instead?

If (for some odd political reasons) this really really cannot be avoided, I
would at least recommend to encode all these <ough>'s as separate letters:

0220;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE OW;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0230;
0221;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE O;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0231;
0222;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE UFF;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0232;
0223;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE OFF;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0233;
0224;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE AUT;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0234;
0225;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE OO;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0235;
0226;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE OCK;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0236;
0227;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE UP;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0237;
0228;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE A;Ll;0;L;<compat> 004F 0055 0047
0048;;;;N;;English;;0238;
022F;LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OUGH LIKE OO SIMPLIFIED FORM;Ll;0;L;<compat>
0055;;;;N;;American English;;023F;

0230;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE OW;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0220;;0220
0231;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE O;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0221;;0221
0232;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE UFF;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0222;;0222
0233;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE OFF;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0223;;0223
0234;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE AUT;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0224;;0224
0235;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE OO;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0225;;0225
0236;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE OCK;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0226;;0226
0237;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE UP;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0227;;0227
0238;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE A;Ll;0;L;<compat> 006F 0075 0067
0068;;;;N;;English;0228;;0228
023F;LATIN SMALL LETTER OUGH LIKE OO SIMPLIFIED FORM;Ll;0;L;<compat>
0075;;;;N;;American English;022F;;022F

Ciough.
        Marcough



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