50+ Lifestyles

PUBLISHER’S CORNER

By Eloise Graham

Though I Thought it Through

Though I thought it through… OUGH sounds like O and AH and EU.
For those of us born here in the United States and learning English from infancy, it is easy to distinguish which sound goes with which word. We either just learned it or memorized it. But try explaining this combination of letters to someone trying to learn our language as a second language. Then we add the word bough. Well, it’s not bo, baa or boo but it is bow (ow as in “that hurts!”) Let’s change that “b” to a “c”- cough. A new conundrum: it’s not coe, caw, coo or cow. It is pronounced coff. Go figure! Yes, English is a hard language to master!

Here are some others: They’re going to put their bags there. Too many times the two of us went back to the buffet. I have read the red book, next I will read the book about reeds. He threw the ball through the window. Which witch did you see? The pitcher released the ball, hitting the pitcher full of Gatorade. The plane was very plain. He reined in the horses in the rain. It was pitch black, too dark to pitch a ball, but his voice was pitch perfect. Holding the reins, the reigning prince rode out onto the rainy road. The sewer of seams, seems to have fallen in the sewer. I will finish the day with a Finnish spa treatment. I have a pair of pears that need to be pared. That dear deer needs to find shelter. I need to knead the dough. Do does need dough? Does the doe like apples? Yikes!!! Can you come up with some? Try explaining the differences to someone with a different language background.

Have you ever thought about the difference between “later” and “then” when telling a story?
He was late getting up, so he missed breakfast. Later he grabbed a bagel, then washed it down with a cup of coffee. Then on to the office he went. Later in the day, he had a series of meetings followed by a tele-conference. Then it was time to go home. He ate dinner then watched some TV, then off to bed.
Did you have trouble following his actions and the time sequence? I was made aware of the trouble a foreigner might have telling a story when I heard a young girl from Costa Rica tell of her life there. She was telling about the flag of which she was so proud. Her story went something like this:

We have the blue for the sky and first flag we had. Later we have the white which means peace. Later we have the red which is for those that bled for the country. Later we have the Coat of Arms in the center.

As I listened to her story, with all of the “later” being in there, I wondered how long it took to design the flag. Then I realized she was using the word “later” where we would have probably used “then.” Then it made sense!