Yes, English can be weird

[csziggy]

5. Some time ago I read an article that said that is because of British regional differences

That the people who originally began compiling words with spellings and pronunciation took their examples from different places in England (and probably Scotland and Wales). That meant that "tough" and "cough" came from one area while "through" and "thought" were from another place.

Rather than trying to arrive at a consistent spelling for the different sounds, they "celebrated" the variations in British usage which is now preserved in our widely differing ways to say and spell the same sounds.

I don't have a reference for the article I read this in. It's been decades and I'm not sure it would even be on the internet. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the variations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#Different_spellings_for_different_pronunciations