Wednesday, June 18, 2008

English as she is writ.

George Bernard Shaw was a life-long proponent of spelling reform. One of his party tricks for pointing out the absurdities of English spelling was to take a piece of paper and write on it GHOTI. He would then invite anyone to work out the common English word this spelled. When they'd all given up, he would announce that it spelled "fish". The "gh" was to be pronounced "f" as in "cough", the "o" pronounced "i" as in "women" and the "ti" pronounced "sh" as in "nation". So there you have it - ghoti spells fish!

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