In this case, we really, really don’t want to continue using “busses” as a plural noun. Merriam-Webster is the authority. We’d rather fight our holy war over labor and center.
Ehh... Cough, tough, bough, lough, slough, and rough called, they wanted to know when English phonology became logical and consistent, and why no one informed them about it?
-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.
