An article in today’s Star talks about a proposition to create an International English Spelling Congress to make the way we spell words more logical and consistent. The article mentions the letter string “ough,” which can be pronounced at least seven ways—as in the words “though,” “through,” “cough,” “rough,” “plough,” “ought” and “borough.” As an old English teacher, I know more time is spent—”wasted” would be a better word—teaching and correcting spelling than would be necessary if words were spelled something like the way they sounded.
This isn’t a new idea. In the 1870s, someone came up with the word “ghoti” as an example of our ridiculous spelling system. The “gh” is pronounced as in “tough,” the “o” as in “women,” and the “ti” as in “nation.” Put it all together and it spells “fish.” (I always thought “ghoti” was a George Bernard Shaw creation. Apparently not—according to Wikipedia, anyway.)
If they were talking about this 150 years ago, I doubt if anything is going to (gonna?) change any time soon.
Word Nerd Note: In James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, he made reference to “ghoti” in typical Joycean fashion:
“Gee each owe tea eye smells fish.”
Now you know.
This article appears in Jan 15-21, 2015.
This could only come from somebody that lacks phonetical training. The words are spelled just fine.
Next they’ll change math to make it “blonder.”
Come on you malcontents!
“Ghoti” for fish has survived for a long time as an example of the quirks and idiocy of English spelling. Unfortunatly (sic) it is not a good analogy. No English word starts with sounding /f/. And the only word I can think of that ends in is Pacific island Kiribati, and there is sounds /s/.
I agree from experience that much time is wasted teaching spelling, a tool subject we ar besotted over, presumably because it givs us so much unnecessary trouble.
The work load of teachers would become vastly smaller if they did not have to keep correcting spelling mistakes which pupils commit only because English spelling is often illogical. More importantly, far more pupils than now would leave school better educated if they did not have to spend so much time on memorising quirky spellings for at least 4,219 common words (listed on my EnglishSpellingProblems blog). Irregular spellings like ‘blue, shoe, flew, through, to, you, two, too’ waste precious learning time which pupils at the lower end of the ability range could do more of for all subjects.
Worse still, many irregular spellings overlap and spell more than one sound, like the letter o (on – only, once, other, won, woman, women, womb). This ensures that many pupils take a very long time to learn to read too, with 1 in 5 never managing to do so properly. And nobody can learn much without learning to read first. English spelling incurs many costs which most people fail to consider. It is in dire need of some tidying up.