How do you pronounce "slough of despond"

[VenetiaLanyon]

I have always pronounced slough to rhyme with cough, rather than like the town; is that right?

@butterpuffed

We Brits are so odd !

Cough
Through
Dough
Slough
Rough
Borough

All pronounced differently...and there's probably more !

Hiccough

One of my grandfathers (born in the 1890s) always pronounced hiccough to rhyme with cough (so sounding like 'coff').

A sloff of despond, I’d say.

Slough to rhyme with plow. Both words in use in the fourteenth century, and the slough is the mire or swamp of misery.

You only pronounce Slough-the -town Slough to rhyme with cough if you want to annoy someone who lives there. Betjeman's poem gives the way to say it:

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!
.... (eight stanzas)
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.