Ghoti

mrdtait
December 08, 2007, 12:35 PM posted in General Discussion

Earlier this week my Professor pointed out a famous author George Bernard Shaw who often cited the word ghoti to try and promote an English spelling reform. 

 

For those who do not know what ghoti means can do the following:

Pronounce the following elements of these three words 

gh as in enough

o as in women

ti as in motion

 

These taken together form the pronunciation for fish. If you write these both using IPA then they will both be spelled the same  /ˈfɪʃ/

Another example and probably a better explanation can be found here: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxwhat04.html 

 

 I know that in Bangla words can have multiple spellings which are used interchangeably to mean the same word but do any similar situations exist in Mandarin?

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