slough

[Pattie]

Today's good word - sough - puts me in mind of another 'ough' word that doesn't get much of an outing, maybe because it usually indicates gloom: slough (as in slough of despond, which, I hasten to assure my fellow Agorites, could rarely be said to decribe my state of mind).

Pattie

[MTC]

Nice choice, Pattie.

As a side note, there is a town in England called "Slough" which became the object of a poetic rebuke. According to Wikipedia,
"1937: The poet John Betjeman wrote his poem Slough as a protest against the new town and 850 factories that had arisen in what had been formerly a rural area, which he considered an onslaught on the rural lifestyle:
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!
However, on the centenary of the poet's birth, the daughter of the poet apologised for the poem. Candida Lycett-Green said her father "regretted having ever written it". During her visit, Mrs Lycett-Green presented Mayor of Slough David MacIsaac with a book of her father's poems. In it was written: "We love Slough".[56]"

We love "slough" too.

[Slava]

Here's the Dr.'s treatment of slough.

This is also a nice double pronunciation word. With the gh pronounced, it has a different meaning.

I like the phrase, "slough off my slough of despond."