What is in a Name?

WHAT IS IN A NAME?
By Martin Ough Dealy
You may well ask! My first name is Martin, spelt M-a-r-t-i-n, pronounced Martin. Really simple and easy to remember would you not agree??
Now my family name is Ough spelt O-u-g-h and pronounced Ough as in though….you know, O.
It is not off as in cough, but O as in though,
It is not auw as in ought or bought or brought, or fought nor even as in dreadnaught,
Catch a brougham and call me oooooo at your peril!
Please do not use uff as in rough
It is not uawghgh as in clough,
And Ock as in hough is positively demeaning.
Nor is it pronounced ouw as in bough. Nor as in doughty or in drought
Please do not try my patience with ow as in plough
It is insulting me to name me och or okkk as in lough
It is not uffff as in rough and tough . You might get close with ow as in Slough but uff is just not good enough.
Nor is uuuh as in Edinburough
It is certainly not oooge as some have tried
It is just simply OOOOO as in ough that is O as in dough.
Please, can you remember that? It is really quite simple, ….. just O!
Now some lesser mortals have tried ouch, ooch, urrrrgh, and errrrrr but these pronunciations simply won’t do. Such people are beyond the pale and would do better by remembering that Ough is O as in though! Really it is as easy as that…..

Now my old man worked in an old fashioned mining company in Mexico. They used a telephone system that required the caller to crank a handle to get the operator, who then plugged the connection and cranked another handle that rang a bell in the office of the callee. The tradition was for the responder to say his surname and the caller then to confirm by saying his own. And in the old man’s case you would get this inane conversation when he called a man called Watt. “watt” here…followed by “ Ough” or O as in though here. Watt….O…..O! OK then What’s the problem…..and so on.
Tired of the constant mispronunciation of my name I thought that adopting my mother’s maiden name would be an answer and so I became Martin Ough ( as in Bough) Dealy . But things really did not get much better as I became either Deary or Deadly or Deathly or Dreary and worse still were the combinations like Och Deadly and Ow Dreary!

O (spelt Ough) Death where is thy sting?!!!!!!

Oh and by the way the following sentence has 7 different ways of pronouncing Ough: “A rough-headed dough-faced ploughman strode coughing and hiccoughing through the streets of Scarborough.”

Two more are as in hough ( as I hock) to hamstring and brougham as in brooooam. Then there is anchoring a dreadnought in a lough, so there are at least 11 ways but only one correct way of saying the surname….O as in though! `
The name is said to have originated in Cornwall and may have come from the French for water…eau…
So there is a lot of watts in a name.

Work in Progress

Ough Family Memories
Stories
and Legends