-ough notoriously has anywhere between four and twelve different pronunciations (if you count strange example with a limited number of words, like hiccough for hiccup).

The point I believe the parent post is making is that you cannot assume that buses would rhyme with fuses, because English orthography is so inconsistent.

Which is partially true - I haven’t seen any research to the effect, but I’d guess you can still predict the pronunciation of an English word with better than a fifty percent chance of success.

Sorry, I thought it'd be obvious that all those -ough words have different pronunciations (for most people, anyway, I think) and that I'd be making my point clearly and lightheartedly. I was just saying that English spelling isn't always "guessable", or how you think it logically should be. [Even though it may well be guessable the majority of the time, as another responder points out, for some reason].

The fact you think "busses" is a preferable spelling to "buses" because it might help you pronounce "buses" differently to "fuses" is only relevant to you yourself. I would have thought this was tautological, myself.

In summary, we could avoid all these fusses with a bit of effort to adhere to accepted usage.