Ghoti


For people of western Bengal, see Ghotis.

Ghoti is a constructed word used to illustrate irregularities in English spelling. It is a respelling of the word fish, and like fish is pronounced /ˈfɪʃ/. It has,

  • gh, pronounced /f/ as in tough /tʌf/;
  • o, pronounced /ɪ/ as in women /ˈwɪmɪn/; and
  • ti, pronounced /ʃ/ as in nation /ˈneɪʃən/.

The first known published reference is in 1874, citing an 1855 letter that credits ghoti to one William Ollier (born 1824).[1] Ghoti is often cited to support English spelling reform, and is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw,[2] a supporter of this cause. However, a biography of Shaw attributes it instead to an anonymous spelling reformer.[3]

Contents

Explanation of Ghoti

The /ʃ/ sound can be spelled eleven ways in English:[4] shirt, sugar, chute, action, issue, ocean, conscious, mansion, schwa, anxious, and special. (Some speakers of English do not use /ʃ/ in every one of these words. For example, issue may be pronounced as /ˈɪsju/ by some speakers of British English.) This phoneme is spelled ti only when the ti comes before a vowel in certain suffixes, as in nation and initial. Thus, this phoneme does not actually occur at the end of English words with the spelling "ti".

Likewise, gh can represent /f/ at the end or middle of the word, as in tough or laughter, but not at the beginning of the word. The consonant cluster gh represents a /ɡ/ sound at the beginning of words such as ghost, and may be silent in the middle or end of words such as right and high.

Cultural references

  • In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce alludes to ghoti: "Gee each owe tea eye smells fish." (p. 299)
  • In the constructed language of Klingon, ghotI’ is the word for "fish".[5]
  • In the episode of Batman "An Egg Grows in Gotham", Egghead uses Ghoti Oeuf as the name for his caviar business, and Batman explains the reference to Robin.
  • Ghoti Hook is a 1990s Christian punk band.
  • The Speech! allophone-based speech synthesiser ROM for the BBC Micro was tweaked to pronounce ghoti as fish.[6] Examination of the ROM's code reveals the string GHOTI used to identify the special case.
  • In the online game Neopets, an aquatic petpet, which is distinctly fish-like in appearance, is called Ghoti.

Ghoughpteighbteau

Ghoughpteighbteau is a similarly constructed word, used for illustration of irregularities in spelling. Like Ghoti, it is sometimes attributed to Shaw[7]. It is a respelling of the word potato, and like potato is pronounced /poʊˈteɪtoʊ/. It has,

  • gh, pronounced /p/ as in hiccough /ˈhɪkʌp/;
  • ough, pronounced /oʊ/ as in though /ðoʊ/;
  • pt, pronounced /t/ as in ptomaine /ˈtoʊmeɪn/;
  • eigh, pronounced /eɪ/ as in neigh /neɪ/;
  • bt, pronounced /t/ as in debt /dɛt/;
  • eau, pronounced /oʊ/ as in bureau /ˈbjʊəroʊ/.

See also

References

  1. ^ Benjamin Zimmer. "Ghoti before Shaw". Language Log. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=81.  Cites S. R. Townshend Mayer, “Leigh Hunt and Charles Ollier”, St. James’s Magazine, October 1874, page 406 (itself citing a 1855 letter from Ollier to Hunt).
  2. ^ Holroyd, Michael, Bernard Shaw: Volume III: 1918–1950: The Lure of Fantasy, Random House, 1994, ISBN 0-517-13035-1
  3. ^ See Jim Scobbie's article at alt-usage-english.org, citing Holroyd, page 501
  4. ^ Sadoski, Mark in Erlbaum, Lawrence; Imagery and text: A dual coding theory of reading and writing, 2001
  5. ^ Klingon Language Institute
  6. ^ "Re: Spelling Bees" Discussion of speech synthesis programs
  7. ^ http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxwhat04.html

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