From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!uwvax!jon Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: ghoti? gheh! Article-I.D.: uwvax.473 Posted: Fri Jul 9 09:57:10 1982 Received: Sun Jul 11 02:14:48 1982 'ghoti' has always annoyed me. It actually breaks spelling rules, since 'gh' and 'ti' are pronounced funny only in certain environments. 'gh' may be pronounced 'g' at the beginning of a word (ghost) 'g h' in a compound word (doghouse) silent, following vowels (night) 'f', FOLLOWING vowels. I can think of no case except following ou or au (rough draught) 'o' pronounced as 'i' is even rarer. Thus, while 'ghoti' does compress several oddities into one string, it is absurd to suggest that it demonstrates English spelling/pronunciation. In fact, I find that the quirks illustrated are among the easier rules of English. ible/able and ent/ant are much harder to get right.