spelling FISH

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 1/3/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> 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.
[...]
> but i dunno.  maybe the "gimme an F" etc. routine survived as a folk
> thing throughout all that time.

Or it could just be surrealist humor, with no allusions to "ghoti" or
Country Joe. I bet this old joke still lingers among college students:

   Q. How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
   A. Fish.


--Ben Zimmer

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