12.06.2006

drink like a ghoti

that's right...ghoti. That's another way to spell "fish" in our silly language, which forces us to pronounce words based on everything BUT the manner in which they are spelled.

Ghoti: in English, a word-final "gh", when pronounced as part of words like "enough" or "laugh", sounds like an [f]. The [i] sound from an "o" vowel can be found in words like "women." The fricative "sh" sound, represented by [ʃ], comes from that handy little suffix "-tion" in words like "friction" and "nation."