Ghoti

The word is intended to be pronounced in the same way as fish (/fɪʃ/), using these sounds:

• gh, pronounced /f/ as in enough /ɪˈnʌf/ or tough /tʌf/;
• o, pronounced /ɪ/ as in women /ˈwɪmɪn/;
• ti, pronounced /ʃ/ as in nation /ˈneɪʃən/ or motion /ˈmoʊʃən/.

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" /ˈɡoʊti/, not "fish".[1]

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.[2]

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."[3] The letter credits ghoti to William Ollier Jr., born 1824.[2][4]

An early known published reference is an October 1874 article by S. R. Townshend Mayer in St. James's Magazine, which cites the letter.[4]

Another relatively early appearance of ghoti was in a 1937 newspaper article,[2] and the term is alluded to in the 1939 James Joyce experimental work of fiction Finnegans Wake.[5]

Ghoti is often cited to support English spelling reform, and is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw,[6] a supporter of this cause. However, the word does not appear in Shaw's writings,[2] and a biography of Shaw attributes it instead to an anonymous spelling reformer.[7] Similar constructed words exist that demonstrate English idiosyncrasies, but ghoti is one of the most widely recognized.[1]

• 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, ghotI’ /ɣoˈtʰɪʔ/ is the proper word for "fish".[8]
• 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.[9]
• Ghoti Hook is a 1990s Christian punk band.
• Ghoti has been used to test speech synthesizers.[10] The Speech! allophone-based speech synthesizer software for the BBC Micro was tweaked to pronounce ghoti as fish.[11] 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".[12]
• The second track of Lupe Fiasco's 2022 album, Drill Music in Zion, is titled "Ghoti".[13]

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

• How to pronounce "ghoti"
• Hou tu pranownse Inglish, an essay on grapheme-to-phoneme rules that discusses "ghoti"
• "What is ghoti?" by Jim Scobbie