Friday, April 25, 2008

Ghoti Should Be Pronounced Fish

I'm writing about this because about a week ago, my dad told me about this. So, I though it would be interesting to post about.

 By Josef Essberger

Some languages are "phonetic". That means that you can look at a word and know how to say it. English is not phonetic. You cannot always look at an English word and know how to say it. You cannot always hear an English word and know how to spell it.

George Bernard Shaw (GBS) was a famous Irish writer. He wanted to reform English spelling so that it was more logical. He asked the following question as an example:

How do we pronounce the word "ghoti"?

His answer was "fish".

How can "ghoti" and "fish" sound the same? GBS explained it like this:

  • the gh = f as in rouGH
  • the o = i as in wOmen
  • the ti = sh as in naTIon

Of course, this was a joke. The word "ghoti" is not even a real word.

GBS...
I like that.
Weird, right?
I don't agree with the O/i though.
Some people say "wimin", but I say "wuhmen".
IT's still kind of cool, though.
 Kat :P

Posted by Kat at 17:20:18 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |