In 1987, Morrow/Remco pub­lished a book of Dr. Seuss’ art­work and writ­ing from the 1920s and 1930s. A col­lec­tion of polit­i­cal car­toons and com­men­tary, from way back before Seuss pub­lished chil­dren’s books, it was titled The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough.

I was fas­ci­nat­ed to dis­cov­er this book exist­ed; I was even more fas­ci­nat­ed to dis­cov­er there was a whole ’nuther book of adult paint­ings by Dr. Seuss. And yes, when I say adult, I mean there are real-life, not-kid­ding, paint­ed by beloved chil­dren’s book author Dr. Seuss, nude paint­ings.

Sor­ry if I ruined your child­hood.

I love this title because I love word­play. In that chap­ter, Seuss takes a (sort of) pro­sa­ic sen­tence and plays with the words and pro­nun­ci­a­tion of said words.

(Side note: “Plough” is a qua­si-archaic/Bri­tish work mean­ing “plow.” Yes; I know Brits don’t know how to spell. No; I don’t care if you agree or are amused or are offend­ed. Plough = plow. Peri­od.)

Now, if you ren­der that title pho­net­i­cal­ly, even though the words have almost the same spelling, it sounds like this: “The Tuff Koffs As He Plows the Doe.”

Seuss has fun with it by ren­der­ing the sen­tence as if each vari­a­tion is the only way to pro­nounce the word.

If we start with the stan­dard pro­nun­ci­a­tion of “tough,” the title sounds like this:

The Tuff Cuffs As He Pluffs the Duff.

And if we fol­low the pro­nun­ci­a­tion of “cough,” we get:

The Toff Koffs As He Ploffs the Doff.

Here’s the “ploughs” ver­sion:

The Tow Cows As He Plows the Dow.

And final­ly the “dough” ver­sion:

The Toe Koes As He Ploes the Doe.

Love­ly, yes?

NO!

This makes me feel like some­one pee­ing on the eter­nal flame at JFK’s gravesite, but Dr. Seuss real­ly screwed the pooch here: He total­ly neglected/forgot anoth­er pro­nun­ci­a­tion of words end­ing in “ough.”

And here it is:

Through.

“Through” is not pro­nounced “thruff,” “throff,” “throws,” or “throe.” It’s pro­nounced “throo.”

And some­how Seuss total­ly missed this!

There­fore, I here­by decree that the title of The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough” should instead be The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs THROUGH the Dough.

Which, in turn, means Dr. Seuss should have had an extra page deal­ing with this pro­nun­ci­a­tion of the title:

The Too Coos As He Ploos Throo the Doo.

And this, my friends, is why, depend­ing on which pro­nun­ci­a­tion you pre­fer, I pro­claim, out loud, no less, that Dr. Seuss

• Scruffed the Puffch
• Scroffed the Pof­fch
• Scrowed the Powch
• Scrood the Pooch, and/or
• Scroed the Poech.

Change my mind!