>
> The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The
> following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced,
> thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after
> falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

If you include the Irish word "lough", there are ten.  By itself, "slough"
has three pronunciations.


>
> The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are
> antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

Some other (more-or-less) self-antonyms: sanction,dust,raveled,terrific,seed
(from  http://cartalk.cars.com/Radio/Puzzler/Transcripts/199939/answer.html)

> The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of
> the Don McLean song.)

http://mrshowbiz.go.com/news/Todays_Stories/990708/americanpie070899.html
Taking this moment in the public spotlight, McLean also debunked several
other myths that have attached themselves to the well-known song. Rumor:
"American Pie" was the name of Buddy Holly's plane the night it crashed.
Fact: "I created the term," says McLean. "It did not exist in any way before
my recording, and to spread this rumor diminishes my contribution. It also
suggest that the song is more about Holly's memory than it actually is."



> The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year
because
> when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all
> the books that would occupy the building.

http://www.indiana.edu/~libweb/campus/libsink.html
The final word on the subject comes from Robert E. Meadows, Indiana
University architect who, in a statement written for the IU Alumni Magazine,
explained why the legend couldn't be farther from the truth.

"Five feet below the Bloomington campus is a 330-million-year old,
94-foot-thick layer of limestone," wrote Meadows. "When the library was
constructed, the upper layer of this rock was found to be harder than
expected. Rather than blast, we raised the lowest level of the building a
number of feet."

In other words, contrary to popular folklore, the library is actually a
number of feet higher than the architect's original design. This should set
the record straight-and help debunk a persistent urban legend.