[Guest]

Not sure if this belongs in riddles or others, so I'll post it in riddles and see if it gets moved.

How do you pronounce the word "Ghoti"?

[Guest]

Im Shaw this will be moved - he he

[Guest]

There are many different ways

"fish"

[Guest]

There are many different ways

"fish"

yup

[Guest]

Fish.

'Gh' from tough, 'o' from women, and 'ti' from rational. Not necessarily stating it was taken from those words, but stating that's how the syllables come upon such peculiar pronunciations.

[Guest]

this kind of "spelling reform" stuff at best exhibits a lack of understanding of the way pronunciations are constructed. The most egregious part of this one is that...'gh' only makes the 'f' sound at the END of words. At the beginning of words it makes a hard 'g' sound, as in 'ghost'.

"Women" is pronounced the way it is because of a process of assimilation. That's the only genuine anomaly pointed out in this entire exercise.

The "ti" in "tion" is NOT in fact pronounced exactly like "sh" (though of course, your dialect may vary). Try pronouncing "direction", you'll note two things. First (depending on your dialect) it's at best "tsh". Second, being as it is in an unstressed syllable, the sounds tend to blend together; if you pronounce the word as written over and over a couple times, you'll find yourself pronouncing it the way we usually do. "sion" (as in discussion) might be closer to what's intended.

At any rate, this is a trick, a "gotcha", not a puzzle. This word actually has a perfectly good English pronunciation, namely "GAH-tee".

Sorry for the rant, these things just irk the heck out of me.

[Guest]

Sorry for the rant, these things just irk the heck out of me.

this kind of "spelling reform" stuff at best exhibits a lack of understanding of the way pronunciations are constructed. The most egregious part of this one is that...'gh' only makes the 'f' sound at the END of words. At the beginning of words it makes a hard 'g' sound, as in 'ghost'.

"Women" is pronounced the way it is because of a process of assimilation. That's the only genuine anomaly pointed out in this entire exercise.

The "ti" in "tion" is NOT in fact pronounced exactly like "sh" (though of course, your dialect may vary). Try pronouncing "direction", you'll note two things. First (depending on your dialect) it's at best "tsh". Second, being as it is in an unstressed syllable, the sounds tend to blend together; if you pronounce the word as written over and over a couple times, you'll find yourself pronouncing it the way we usually do. "sion" (as in discussion) might be closer to what's intended.

At any rate, this is a trick, a "gotcha", not a puzzle. This word actually has a perfectly good English pronunciation, namely "GAH-tee".

Lighten up a little; it's just a joke . Maybe it doesn't exactly belong in puzzles, but I'm not sure where else it would be appropriate, since people do have to think if they've never seen it before.

Besides, I don't see how this constitutes any kind of "spelling reform," since the only "reformers" that I know of are the people who want to simplify the spelling of the English language and remove oddities like tear and tear or things like bear and bare. Of course, that would destroy the history of the language and remove all sorts of nuance and I must conclude, can only be advocated by those who don't understand the nuance of language in general.

The people who create words like "ghoti" are the antithesis of such "reformers" and obviously understand the language well enough to abuse it. I've always said, "You have to understand the English language before you're allowed to abuse it" and I think that applies in this case. (This is, of course, why I think that certain people and presidents should be banned from public speaking... ) For a real English treat and a look at the English Simplifiers' worst nightmare, you should see the poem Itachi-san found and posted here in the Others section.

[rookie1ja]

off to "Others"