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Chris -- 2018-04-11
‘Slough of despond’ is from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progess. But nobody knows how to pronounce ‘slough’ and despondent individuals really do slow down – the technical term is ‘psychomotor retardation.’ Rare. Examples:
We’re now deep in the slow of despond, despairing that we see nothing but large and growing deficits as far as the eye can see …
www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20040113panel2.pdf
Faby has finally escaped from the Slow of Despond.
blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=390739525
Whatever Damian’s immediate reaction – and I would understand the Slow of Despond – he would soon earn his way out by giving the bu***rs a hard time ...
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian…/revealed_the_secret_questionnaire_that_the_vatican_uses_in_the_choice_of_bishops?...2
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Wow, that’s terrific. Presumably it goes from written “slough of despond” to spoken /slo Æv dIspand/ to written “slow of despond”. I like it.
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And exactly 1 ghit for ‘slog of despond’:
I’m glad you’ve climbed out of the Slog of Despond. ... Congratulations on breaking through the slog! ...
zeneedle.typepad.com/zeneedle_process_of_art/2008/11/developments.html
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I love the ideas behind these but I wonder about their origin. The first Slow is a transcript of spoken proceedings – perhaps the scribe was unfamiliar with the word slough? The other two appear to be from the UK, where slough is pronounced… is pronounced… dang, where it rhymes with cow. As for a Slog of Despond, that one I will adopt – clever, and will be very useful in my line of work. But it’s clear from the source webpage that it’s a deliberate pun.
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