Or Why I Believe in Simplified Spelling
``The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough''
It was forty-five years ago, when I first came to America as a young
Roumanian student of divinity, that I first met the evils of the
``ough words.'' Strolling one day in the country with my fellow
student, I saw a tough, coughing as he ploughed a feild, which (being
quite nearsighted)I misstook for pie dough. Assuming that all ough
words were pronounced the same, I casually remarked, ``The tuff cuffs
as he pluffs the duff!'' ``Sacrilege!'' shrieked my devout companions.
``He is curising in Roumanian!'' I was expelled from school.
``Mr. Hough, Your Bough is in the Trough''
The ministry being closed to me, I then got a job as a chore boy on the
farm of an eccentric Mr. Hough, who happed to spend most of his time in
the bough of a tree overhanging a trough. I was watering a colt one
morning, when I noticed that Mr. Hough's weight had forced the bough down
into the water. ``Mr. Hoo!'' I shouted. ``Your Boo is in the Troo!''
Thinking I was speaking lightly of his wife, Mr. Hough fired me on the spot.
``Enough! Enough I'm Through!''
So I drifted into the prize ring. But here again the curse of teh
oughs undid me. One night at the Garden, I was receiving an
unmerciful trouncing froma mauler twice my size. Near the end of the
sixth round I could stand it no longer. I raised my feeble hand in
surrender. ``Eno! Eno!'' I gulped. ``I'm thruff!'' ``Insults like that I
take from no man!''bellowed my opponent, and he slugged me into a coma!
Something snapped!...a maddening flash...and all became black. Fifteen
years later I awoke to find myself the father of three homely daughters
named Xough, Yough, and Zough. I had become a thorough-going Augho-maniac.