Ghoti

''Ghoti'' is a creative respelling of the word ''fish'', used to illustrate irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation.

Explanation

The word is intended to be pronounced in the same way (), using these sounds:
* ''gh'', pronounced as in ''enough'' or ''tough'' ;
* ''o'', pronounced as in ''women'' ;
* ''ti'', pronounced as in ''nation'' or ''motion'' .

The key to the phenomenon is that the pronunciations of the constructed word's three parts are inconsistent with how they would ordinarily be pronounced in those placements. To illustrate: ''gh'' can only resemble ''f'' when following the letters ''ou'' or ''au'' at the end of certain morphemes ("tough", "cough", "laugh"), while ''ti'' would only resemble ''sh'' when followed by a vowel sound ("martian", "patient", "spatial"). The expected pronunciation in English would sound like "goaty" , not "fish".

History

In 1815, there were several examples of absurd spellings given in a book by Alexander J. Ellis, ''A Plea for Phonotypy and Phonography'', which advocated spelling reform. However, ''ghoti'' was not among the examples, which were all relatively lengthy and thus harder to remember.

The first confirmed use of ''ghoti'' is in a letter dated 11 December 1855 from Charles Ollier to Leigh Hunt. On the third page of the letter, Ollier explains, "My son William has hit upon a new method of spelling Fish." Ollier then demonstrates the rationale, "So that ''ghoti'' is ''fish''." The letter credits ''ghoti'' to William Ollier Jr., born 1824.

An early known ''published'' reference is an October 1874 article by S. R. Townshend Mayer in '' St. James's Magazine'', which cites the letter.

Another relatively early appearance of ''ghoti'' was in a 1937 newspaper article, and the term is alluded to in the 1939 James Joyce milestone experimental work of fiction ''Finnegans Wake''.

''Ghoti'' is often cited to support English spelling reform, and is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, a supporter of this cause. However, the word does not appear in Shaw's writings, and a biography of Shaw attributes it instead to an anonymous spelling reformer. Similar constructed words exist that demonstrate English idiosyncrasies, but ''ghoti'' is one of the most widely recognized.

Notable usage

*In ''Finnegans Wake'' (published in 1939), James Joyce alludes to ''ghoti'': "Gee each owe tea eye smells fish." ("G-H-O-T-I spells 'fish'.") (p. 299). On p. 51, ''that fishabed ghoatstory'' may also allude to ''ghoti''.
*In the artistic language Klingon, is the proper word for "fish".
*In "An Egg Grows in Gotham", a 1966 episode of the television series ''Batman'', the villain Egghead uses "Ghoti Oeufs" as the name for his caviar business, and Batman explains the reference to Robin.
*Ghoti Hook is a 1990s Christian punk band.
*''Ghoti'' has been used to test speech synthesizers. The ''Speech!'' allophone-based speech synthesizer software for the BBC Micro was tweaked to pronounce ''ghoti'' as ''fish''. Examination of the code reveals the string GHOTI used to identify the special case.
*In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, there is a series of fish-type cards called "Ghoti".
*The second track of Lupe Fiasco's 2022 album, ''Drill Music in Zion'', is titled "Ghoti".

See also

* English-language spelling reform
* English orthography
* English phonology
* "The Chaos", a poem which demonstrates the irregularity of English orthography

References

{{Reflist

External links

How to pronounce "ghoti"


an essay on grapheme-to-phoneme rules that discusses "ghoti"



English words
English orthography