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I saw this interesting native-speaker spelling mistake today!

The writer wrote 'borough' instead of 'borrow'.

The interesting thing is that these 2 words are NOT homophones in the UK.

• borough = /ˈbʌrə/ buh-ruh [meaning: a town or district - not a useful word so you don't need to know it]
• borrow = /ˈbɒrəʊ/ boh-row [a useful word, commonly confused with 'lend']

THOROUGH

Something interesting happens with 'thorough' (Meaning: extremely attentive to accuracy and detail)

• UK: ˈθʌrə (thuh-ruh)
• US: ˈθɝːoʊ (thoh- row) (similar sound to 'borrow').

Anyway!

'Thorough' is one of 101 most mispronounced words, possibly because of the confusion with 'through'.

THROUGH: /θruː / (throo)

'Through' is a homophone of 'threw' (past tense of throw, which sounds like 'thorough in US English!!😫)

See also: throughout, tough, thought, though!