# Why isn't comb pronounced like bomb? And other English Language Blunders...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 5, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098 "2003-08-05T13:20:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/1 "2003-08-05T13:20:05Z")
Shouldn’t comb be pronounced like bomb? They are both ending in **OMB** right? Or when there is one goose it’s a goose, but in the plural they are geese. But more than one **Moose** they are certainly not **Meese** …Why? And does anyone know other crazy english language isms…?
Excuse the banality of the post. it’s early 🙂
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### Author:  [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/2 "2003-08-05T13:26:02Z")
There sure are a lot of hice in my neighborhood.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/3 "2003-08-05T13:30:01Z")
Mouse to mice…spouse to spice?
I can feel her thinking evil thoughts about me right now.
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/4 "2003-08-05T13:33:36Z")
_House to hice… douse to dice,
That’s not nouse and it sure is nice._
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### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/5 "2003-08-05T13:48:49Z")
**Pf** izer - how’d they get those two letters to sound like an **F**?
Or **PH** to sound like an F for that matter?
other words to ponder… **Gnarle** , **know** (no?)…
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/6 "2003-08-05T14:39:38Z")
Why is “one” pronounced the same as “won” when clearly it should sound like “own”.
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### Author:  [@universe.zip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/universe.zip)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/7 "2003-08-05T14:46:06Z")
Worcester.
Aah, English pronounciation… any examples where it is actually logical? 😉
As someone wiser than me once said: ghoti.
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### Author:  [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/8 "2003-08-05T14:54:13Z")
cough
through
bough
slough
dough
tough
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### Author:  [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/9 "2003-08-05T14:59:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by universe.zip \*
> \*\*Worcester. \*\*
Now let’s tell people who it’s pronounced if you live near it.
Not **war-cester** like it looks but **wuster** or **wooster**.
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### Author:  [@Lodrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lodrain)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/10 "2003-08-05T15:21:52Z")
[cracks knuckles]
According to my dictionary, ‘bomb’ is from the French ‘bombe’, which would be pronounced something like ‘bahmb’, with the ‘b’ fully pronounced. When we borrowed it into English, we, after a while, stopped pronouncing the ‘b’, since English is much averse to ‘mb’ at the end of a word.
‘Comb’ is a native Anglo-Saxon word, and has undergone the same loss of ‘b’ at the end after the ‘m’. In Anglo-Saxon days, ‘comb’ was pronounced ‘kohmb’, and yes, the ‘b’ was pronounced. We stopped pronouncing it for the same reason we stopped with ‘lamb’, ‘jamb’ and a bunch of other words that historically ended in ‘mb’, but have lost the ‘b’.
**zeldar** –the ‘gh’ at the end of words used to be a sound like the modern German ‘ch’. English did lots of weird things to that sound. If it ended a word and the preceding vowel was a rounded vowel (in Old English, those were ‘a’, ‘o’ and ‘u’), it became ‘f’. Otherwise, it just up and disappeared.
Questions?
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/11 "2003-08-05T18:46:13Z")
Then there’s that comparitive adjective thing. I have two brothers, one older, and one younger. I am my older brother’s older brother, and I am my younger brother’s younger brother. That sounds impossible, but that’s the way the language works.
I can clarify that a bit. My older brother has two brothers (me and my younger brother.) I am the older of the two, though I am still younger than my older brother. A trick of the language.
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### Author:  [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/12 "2003-08-05T19:49:04Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Phlosphr \*
> \*\*Shouldn’t comb be pronounced like bomb? They are both ending in **OMB** right? \*\*
Add “tomb” to that list and you’ve got 3 variations on “omb” sounds.
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### Author:  [@Alto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alto)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/13 "2003-08-05T19:55:48Z")
Try reading this out loud:
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation – think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
(Mods: As far as I know, this is an anonymous verse floating around without any attribution or copyright, so I thought it would be OK to post it here. If I’m wrong and it should be deleted, here’s a link: [http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc-misc/DearestCreature.html](http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~stolfi/PUB/misc-misc/DearestCreature.html) )
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### Author:  [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/14 "2003-08-05T21:14:27Z")
Mark Rosenfelder of [zompist.com](http://zompist.com) has these [guidelines for pronouncing English](http://www.zompist.com/spell.html), which he claims will “tell you how to pronounce a written word correctly over 85% of the time.”
Here’s a [collection of spelling reform links](http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/reilly-links.htm).
Here’s the [Wikipedia article on English orthography](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling), which says of spelling reforms,
> [@](#):
>
> Proposals for spelling reform have failed for several reasons. The spelling system is really not as bad as its critics have claimed, and causes few problems; a radical reform would be offensive to the eye and cut us off from the past; and minor reforms are hardly worth the trouble. American English spelling diverged slightly from that of British English, partly as a conscious attempt at rationalisation, partly to distance the newly-independent United States from Great Britain, but the changes are so small as to make hardly any difference, and merely make work for proof readers and sellers of spell-checking software.
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### Author:  [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/15 "2003-08-06T08:17:10Z")
Then there was a soldier who was stranded when the rest of his platoon made a hasty retreat.
He was left right back at the front.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/16 "2003-08-06T16:15:31Z")
If goods are transported by **water** they are calleda **car** go but if they are transported by **road** they are called a **ship** ment.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2003, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/17 "2003-08-06T16:27:15Z")
If singers sing, why don’t fingers fing?
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2003, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/18 "2003-08-06T19:46:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Zeldar \*
> \*\*cough
> through
> bough
> slough
> dough
> tough \*\*
I don’t see any issue. They’re all spelled to match their pronunciation exactly. Of course, that’s the pronunciation when the word first entered the language.\* So it’s not the spelling that’s wrong; it’s the pronunciation is incorrect.
And as far as “ghoti” is concerned, no, it is **not** pronounced “fish,” unless you think “luxury yacht” is pronounced “throat-warbler mangrove.” In other words, if you choose random syllables, you can pretend whatever you wish, but if you mean you’re using rules of pronouncing English words, the word would be pronounced “goaty” (or possibly “Gotti”).\*\*
If you think “words should be spelled the way they’re pronounced”, the key question is “pronounced by whom?” Which is right – “murderer” or “murdrer” (both pronunciations are used). Should “Mary,” “marry,” and “merry” have one, two, or three spellings (since some people pronounce them the same, others differentiate between two, and still others use different pronunciations for all three)? Lots of people say “nuculer” – should that be correct spelling? Why not? – it’s the way they pronounce it. If you pahk your cah in Boston, do you have to spell it that way?
My wife says “nyther,” I say “neether” – who’s version should we choose? If it’s “nyther,” the word isn’t spelled the way I pronounce it. If it’s “neether,” it’s not spelled the way she does. Is it “tomayto” or “tomahto”?
In other words, let’s take Gershwin’s advice and call the whole spelling reform thing off.
- roughly a combination of the “ou” in "you"and the “ch” in the German “ach” or in “Chanukah.”
\*\*“gh” at the start of a word is always pronounced a hard “g” (ghost, ghastly, etc.). “ti” is only pronounced “sh” if it’s followed by “on.” “o” is pronounced “i” in one word, and one word only.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/19 "2003-08-06T21:09:16Z")
It probably won’t help the OP, but if it makes him feel any better I can offer some insight into why these odd plurals exist.
Germanic languages, of which English is one, historically divide nouns into a number of declensions, of which some form their plurals by a change in the stressed vowel of the word. A change in vowel is called _Umlaut_, which most appropriately comes from German, as that language still has many, many Umlaut plurals.
The handful of Umlaut plurals still current in English–_feet, geese, mice,_ and _lice_–all have Umlaut plurals in German.
I’m sure there’s real linguists here who can explain why English has lost most of its Umlaut plurals, but I think the principal reason for it is the influence of French after the Norman Conquest.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098/20 "2003-08-06T21:35:32Z")
Galleger (sp?) had a rather funny bit all about the inconsistencies of English pronunciation.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-comb-pronounced-like-bomb-and-other-english-language-blunders/193098.md?page=2)