NEW YORK—A city judge has called upon police and linguistic authorities to bring the letter combination OUGH into custody. In a sharply worded statement, Judge Abner Hough called the four-letter syllable a "menace to society" and asked officials to act quickly in the interest of public safety.
"In my 32 years on the bench, I have seen people struggle mightily with the pronunciation of my last name," Hough said. "They say 'huff' or 'hoff' or 'how' or 'ho.' Nobody knows what's right and they suffer terribly for it. It's high time this suffering was stopped and justice was done."
Police have no leads on the current whereabouts of OUGH, but say they have questioned OUCH and OUTH.
"OUGH is tricky because it has so many disguises and pronunciations," said Chief Barnaby Dunkmeister, who heads the investigation. "Our main advantage is that OUGH can't stand by itself. To make a word it needs to partner up without another letter or two, and that's when we'll make our move."
It's not clear how the language will change if and when OUGH is apprehended.
"What would likely happen is that the spelling of words that include OUGH would change to conform with their accepted pronunciation," said lexico-lawyer Hamish Morpheme. "Cough would become 'coff,' tough would become 'tuff,' and so on."
When asked what he would do with his own name after OUGH is incarcerated, Judge Hough said "I've always wanted something easy to pronounce. Right now, I'm leaning toward 'Krzyzewski'."
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