2020-10-26: Linguistic Puzzle                                rak
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People often tell me that French is hard to read because of its
silent letters, and because letters combine to form various
distinct sounds.

This reminds me of a fun fact about the English language: the
combination "ough" makes at least seven distinct sounds:

   Word          Rhymes with
1. bough         how
2. bought        rot 
3. dough         doe
4. hiccough      cup
5. hough         rock
6. through       who
7. tough         buff

I would like to pose the following linguistic puzzle:

    Which combination of two or more letters has the most
    distinct pronunciations in the English language?

My current leader is: "ough" with seven. Please send me an email
if you know of a better answer!