ghoti

[Jonathan Lighter]

I serendipitously came upon this amusing exchange in a novel by John Hersey

  1960 J. Hersey _The Child-Buyer_ (rpt. N.Y.: Bantam Classics, 1964) 71:

  BARRY RUDD: I love anomalies, exceptions. _Vein, vane, vain. Through, dough, bough, rough, cough._  Senator Skypack, do you know how to spell 'fish' ?

  Senator SKYPACK: What, what, what ? What _is_ this ? I got out of school second year high school. I don't have to be taught lessons by a doggone little fairy like this...._F-i-s-h._

  BARRY RUDD: Wrong, Senator. You spell it _g-h-o-t-i_.  You take the _gh_ as pronounced in 'rough,' the _o_ as pronounced in 'women,' and the _ti_ as pronounced in 'nation,' and
  _g-h-o-t-i_ spells 'fish.'  I think it was G. B. Shaw who first pointed that out. He wanted to simplify our absurd spelling.

  (Essay question: Which character is the more obnoxious ?)

  The same page also reveals the common eight-letter word that contains but one vowel.

  John Hersey may be best remembered as the author of _Hiroshima_ (1946).

  JL

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