A question about slough.

[QueenMabby]

Can someone offer advice on the pronunciation of this word? To mean the exfoliation of skin.

Is it slough as in tough or slough as in plough?

Thank you.

One more question: If you end a sentence with etc. do you need two full stops or is the one at the end of etc. enough?

Thank you.

For slough meaning removing skin it's "sluff".

For etc. at the end of a sentence you don't need two full stops.

Sluff. I don't know the answer to your second point but now i really want to say that one is enuff.

I had to stop and think about how I pronounce this, I read it as sloch (soft ch as in loch) because it looks like it rhymes with trough (troch). But in practice at work I say slof and so do most of my colleagues. I’m in the north of Scotland if that makes any difference.

Yes, sluff.

@PocketFullOfPuddocks in the south, trough is pronounced as troff!

@Seeline I remember as a child hearing an English farmer refer to the ‘troff’ and asking my dad what that was, it was always a ‘troch’ on our farm. Language is so interesting, I love hearing all the regional variations of words!

Interesting. I've always said it to rhyme with plough. Like the place!

Slough to rhyme with plough is the second meaning of the word slough, which means slogging through mud (literally or metaphorically).

I agree.

In Pilgrims Progress, the Slough of Despond is pronounced to rhyme with plough.

Yes, when I read @RoseslnTheHospital post up above my mind said "Slough of Despond in Pilgrim's Progress", although I've never read it. The March girls talk about the Slough of Despond iirc.

Sluff if referring to removing skin
Rhymes with now if meaning bog, the town in Berkshire, or slough of despond.

Etc. is short for et cetera. Sentences don't have two full stops if they end in etc.