In my Intro to SWI LEXinar, which I am currently teaching, I always explain that words like laugh, rough, caught, fought, etc., have a <ugh> in them, not a <gh>. That <ugh>, I explain, can either spell /f/ or nothing at all.
All For Naught
But the orthographic phonology is not the only thing that governs grapheme choice; pronunciation alone is way overrated when it comes to orthography.
