spelling FISH

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/3/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> as an offshoot of my Language Log postings on the randomness of the
> number 17 (especially at princeton), i was offered this wonderful
> report from a member of the class of '93 at princeton:
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > During my time at Princeton, I was in the Band, which had a rare
> > and fanatical devotion to randomness. But we never embraced "17" as
> > we should. Our cheer went like this:
> >
> > Gimme an 'R'! ('R!')
> > Gimme an 'A'! ('A!')
> > Gimme an 'N'! ('N!')
> > Gimme a 'D'! ('D!')
> > Gimme an 'O'! ('O!')
> > Gimme an 'M'! ('M!')
> > What's that spell? ('FISH!')
>
> i say it's ghoti, and i say the hell with it.

My guess is that this has less to do with "ghoti" and more to do with
Country Joe McDonald's "Fish" cheer (which eventually transformed into
the "Fuck" cheer heard at Woodstock).

http://www.countryjoe.com/cheer.htm

But hey, maybe those clever Princetonians were attempting a joint GB
Shaw/Country Joe homage (with some Dada thrown in).


--Ben Zimmer

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