spelling FISH

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jan 2, 2007, at 9:40 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> 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).

well, i was just funnin' with "ghoti", but my impression was the
Country Joe and the Fish pretty much disappeared off the radar in the
70s.  my daughter and her friends were into some things from those
days (the Velvet Underground and the Fugs, in particular, as well as
the Beatles and the Stones), but i think that they missed CJ
completely, and Phil Ochs as well. (to orient you, most of them
graduated from college in 1986, seven years before the guy i quoted
above.  in fact, this guy *began* college a full 20 years after
Woodstock.)

but i dunno.  maybe the "gimme an F" etc. routine survived as a folk
thing throughout all that time.

arnold

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