Earliest Reference to "Ghoti"

[Fred Shapiro]

I have previously posted a 1938 reference to "ghoti" as a spelling of
"fish."  This was, I believe, the earliest reference anyone had ever
found.

Here's a slightly earlier one I just discovered:

1937 _Garfieldian_ (Chicago, Ill.) 18 Nov. 6/8 (Newspaperarchive.com)  The
office puzzler came in a moment ago to ask how we would pronounce the word
ghoti if the gh were pronounced as in rough, the o as in women, and the ti
as in notion.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
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