George Bernard Shaw once said that the word ghoti could be pronounced “fish.”
His reasoning?
Well, how to you pronounce tough? Or women? Or nation?
Technically, if you follow those rules, ghoti is pronounced like something else entirely.
Thanks to Alexa for this gem.



This reminds me of one of my pet peeves. I can’t stand it when someone pronounces the word “women” like woman, but with an “eh” sound in the second syllable instead of an “ah.”
I know it’s spelled that way, but that doesn’t make it okay!
Looks like someone needs to get out the correction tape…
“Well, how to you pronounce tough? ”
“…how to you…”?
C’mon now, the letter T isn’t even that close to the letter D on the keyboard for that kind of mistake. Stop drinking and posting.
Eric, you can’t mispronounce woman and have it sound like women. If you’re saying woman, it’s spelled like woman. You can misuse the word, or say one thing but mean another. You can’t mispronounce apple and have it sound like orange.
Stop whining man! HA!
On the German wikipedia website is another way of pronouncing ghoti.
“gh” as in “night“ or “fight“, “o” as in “people“, “t” as in “ballet“ or “gourmet“ and “i” as in “business“.
Markus – that’s awesome
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There’s a christian band called Ghoti Fish.