Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

I imagine many/most/all of us have heard the story about "ghoti" -

"When talk turns to the irrationality of English spelling conventions, a five-letter emblem of our language’s foolishness inevitably surfaces: ghoti. The Christian Science Monitor, reporting on the spelling-bee protesters, laid out the familiar story (while casting some doubt on its veracity): “The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw is said to have joked that the word ‘fish’ could legitimately be spelled ‘ghoti,’ by using the ‘gh’ sound from ‘enough,’ the ‘o’ sound from ‘women’ and the ‘ti’ sound from ‘action.’ ”

Just one problem with the well-worn anecdote: there’s not a shred of evidence that Shaw, though a noted advocate for spelling reform, ever brought up ghoti. Scholars have searched high and low through Shaw’s writings and have never found him suggesting ghoti as a comical respelling of fish."


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0

Regards,
John

[adventious]

I don't believe I was taught it was Shaw's, but despite its appeal of illustrating the borrowed, assimilated, syncopated, palatalizated, broadened, and attenuated clutter that English orthography can be, when it came to presenting it, I was never comfortable doing so because gh-, as an initial blend, never produces a voiceless labiodental fricative <f>.

As riddles go, it's a little unfair.

[wangdaning]

yeah, ought, off - ott, ough would be more convincing.