Hetty Harper went to Slough
I hope she's made it home by now

Unless she slid off in a slough
If so, I don't know what we'll do

Ah, botheration, let it slough
I think I've worried quite enough

(edited to add: This one, I'm proud to say, is original, inspired by Giselle's explanation of the three pronunciations of 'slough'.)

Nice poem Tom, maybe we will get a whole slough (phonetic: slu) of them ... !

giselle, I don't mean to be pedantic, but the way you are using it, the word should be spelled slew. Slough (slu pronounciation) is a bog or creek. As a boy, I often fished in a local creed known as Parson's Slough. Whether the source of Parson was the synonym for preacher, or a family name, I don't know.

Slough is in Berkshire, near Windsor, not a suburb of London.

It is a strange language, English, very rich though it is. It is because it is made up of so many other languages. The pronounciations must be a nightmare for anyone whose mother tongue is not English and for some of us for whom it is.

An example is the spelling of the simple word 'Fish' = spelled ghoti = gh as in cough, o as in women, and ti as in cautious.

There is sound argument for us all to go back to speaking Latin, which at least is pronounced just as it is written. Rather like Italian, but it wouldn't be so much fun.

A neighbour, full of malapropisms, announced she was going to have a conservative built onto her house (conservatory). My mother in law said her neighbour was having trouble with her eyes because she had a detatched rectum!!

What would we do for laughs if we didn't have this silly language?

One must suppose the people of Slough don't want to be associated with Bunyan's 'slough of despond' in Pilgrims Progress, so they pronounce it differently but none-the-less Slough means - a soggy marsh.

It is interesting to speculate on the origins of place-names. I live in the village of Weaverham - so that is simply a hamlet by the River Weaver, which it is. But where we used to live, there was a small village called Wildboarclough (rhyming with cuff, not rhyming with cow). I would have loved to live there, just for the name, although it is a very pretty place.

Close to here is a lovely village called Lower Peover and further up the road is Peover Superior. There is a London borough of Tooting where my daughter once lived in her misspent youth. There is a part called Tooting Bec - which is French for stream, apparently because there was a Monastery of French monks there during the dark ages. There is also a famous and notorious landmark there called 'Amen Corner'. I think they used to preach there.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Welsh pronunciation: [ˌɬanvairˌpuɬɡwɨ̞ŋˌɡɨ̞ɬɡoˌɡɛrəˌχwərnˌdrobuɬˌɬantɨ̞ˌsiljoˌɡoɡoˈɡoːχ] ( listen)) is a large village and community on the island of Anglesey in Wales, situated on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor. This village has the longest place name in Europe and one of the longest place names in the world. The short form of the village's name is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, also spelled Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll. It is commonly known as Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll.

The name means: [St.] Mary's Church (Llanfair) [in] the hollow (pwll) of the white hazel (gwyngyll) near (goger) the rapid whirlpool (y chwyrndrobwll) [and] the church of [St.] Tysilio (llantysilio) with a red cave ([a]g ogo goch).

Cattleman wrote:giselle, I don't mean to be pedantic, but the way you are using it, the word should be spelled slew. Slough (slu pronounciation) is a bog or creek. As a boy, I often fished in a local creed known as Parson's Slough. Whether the source of Parson was the synonym for preacher, or a family name, I don't know.

You are correct about 'slew' and I don't think you're being pedantic ... this was a rather weak attempt at a pun but obviously it didn't come across. oh well.

Penelope wrote:Slough is in Berkshire, near Windsor, not a suburb of London.

Huh! Seems like my puns are weak and so is my geography! Well, I did find an interesting reference in Wiki to pronunciation of 'Slough' if you go back a few years .... actually, quite a few years ... I wonder if they mean 'slowe' or 'slow' rhyming with 'now' or 'snow'? Not sure I'd want to be from a place called 'Slow', if it rhymes with 'snow', but I guess that is what it was called way back when.

The first recorded uses of the name occurs as Slo in 1196, Sloo in 1336, and Le Slowe, Slowe or Slow in 1437.

(((((((giselle)))))))) hugs giselle, I liked your puns. And your geographical knowledge of UK is superlative compared to mine of the US and Canada.

Here are two very different love poems and I love both of them.


Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

~Rabindranath Tagore



To My Dear and Loving Husband
By Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Poet Anne Bradstreet 1612–1672

here is another one by Robert Graves:

A Lover Since Childhood

Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?

If thus and thus I do,
Dazed by the thought of you,
Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,
My heart cut through and through
In this despair of you,
Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew:


give then a thought for me
Walking so miserably,
Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;
Do but remember, we
Once could in love agree,
Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.