One of the many reasons that English is weird

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Rhyblet, May 4, 2014.

  1. If the GH sound in "enouGH" is pronounced "F", the O in "wOmen" makes the short "I" sound, and the TI in "naTIon" is pronounced "SH", then the word
    "GHOTI"
    is pronounced "FISH".
    Welcome to the english language.
  2. Where'd you read this?

    Also, keep in mind that the "GH" in "Though" is silent, and the "TI" you mentioned relies off of the "tiON".
  3. So, by that logic, "GHOTI" would be pronounced "ISH".
    "English is confusing-ghoti."
    -ghoti is now the suffix -ish.
    Logic! :D
    Scorpio528 and mba2012 like this.
  4. No, because the "ish" sound is only a portion of what is needed to produce the "whole" sound.
    607 likes this.
  5. All this thread proves is a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language, and language in general. Many languages have conditional sounds or meanings based on the conjunction of either traditional symbols or letters.

    Context provides the means for understanding language. If you take away context, you can't presume meaning. I understand this thread is for fun, but education.
    Tiburok, Kephras, mba2012 and 2 others like this.
  6. The longest word in English is 189,819 characters long. It is the chemical name for the protein Titan.

    Yes I suppose it is weird.

    Keep in mind the 'i' is silent, however. Oh, and that 'e' is pronounced 'i'. Then the 'e' in 'pronounced' is silent...
  7. I like how you spelled shound :p
  8. I'd be more inclined to believe that the chemical name for that protein would be latin based, and therefore not really English. And it's also not found in any dictionaries and is a technical term, and again, not proper English. This would make antidisestablishmentarianism the longest non-technical word in the English language.
  9. Heh... heh... heh...
    You saw nothing.


  10. Also, I pronounce women, women not wimen.
    zombieslayer010 likes this.
  11. If you look closely the plant blossoms, then dies.

    I think the scientist who named it just fell asleep on his keyboard all night...
    Night, not knight, which would have been pronounced 'k-night', but..
  12. They have a whole wiki on GHOTI. Anyway, if you think about other words, they can be spelled pretty much the same but pronounced completely different. Example:
    tOMB - "Tomb"
    bOMB - "Bomb"
    cOMB - "Comb"
    And so on...
  13. WHY ENGLISH IS SO HARD

    We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
    But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
    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 nest full of mice,
    Yet 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?
    If I speak of my foot and show you my 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?

    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!
    607, mba2012, Kephras and 3 others like this.
  14. Case in point, "TI" does not make the sh sound without "on." Alone, -ti- is phonetic, only when you have -tion as a suffix do you get the "shon" sound.
    Granted, the idea of "GHOTI = Fish" breaks down in a lot of places, but the -tion thing is where it fails hardest for me since it's like trying to break up Q and U - it simply doesn't happen in English*.

    *An argument can be made for "Tranq," but this is simply the shortened form of "Tranquilizer" which still abides by the Q-U rule.