Crazy English: ghoti

Ghoti is a constructed word intended to illustrate some of the craziness in English punctuation, in that, taking the sounds of its parts from different places, it could be said as fish.

Said as: fish
Written as: ghoti
Derived from: enouGH, wOmen, naTIon

In my book -ough, in particular, is the craziest as in enough, thorough, bough, through, although - all pronounced totally differently.

I’d heard it credited to George Bernard Shaw, but apparently, his biography credits it to an ‘anonymous spelling reformer’.

Spelling Potato

A modern extension demonstrates the same idea as the ghoti joke by constructing the word potato. It could, in principle, be spelled ghoughphtheightteeau.

It's often written as:

If ‘GH’ can stand for ‘P’ in Hiccough…
If ‘OUGH’ stands for ‘O’ in Dough…
If ‘PHTH’ stands for ‘T’ as in Phthisis…
If ‘EIGH’ stands for ‘A’ in Neighbour…
If ‘TTE’ stands for ‘T’ as in Gazette…
If ‘EAU’ stands for ‘O’ as in Plateau…

Then another way to spell POTATO might be:

ghoughphtheightteeau

English Plurals and the Plural Poem

Enjoy more curiosities of English plurals in this poem:

We’ll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes;
The one fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese;
You may find a lone mouse or a whole nest of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice;
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But a bow, if repeated, is never called bine;
And the plural of vow is vows, never vine.
If I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular’s this and the plural is these,
Should be plural of kiss ever be keese?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose;
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren;
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his, and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim.
So the English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the greatest language you ever did see.

— The English Plural poem published in Miscellaneous Notes and Queries, August 1897

Also see the brilliant poem The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité

Related Ideas to Ghoti

Also see: