ghoti = fish

[Herb Stahlke]

I find three pronunciations, probably depending on context:

/frEnS/ (e.g. as unstressed prenominal modifier)
/frEntS/
/frEn?tS/

The last two seem to be in free variation, although the glottalized seems
more likely to show up as a one-word answer.

Herb

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 11:53 PM, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: ghoti = fish
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's a valid BE pronunciation in most dialects.  I remember getting
> into debates with my Scottish-born ex-wife as to whether "French"
> had /ntS/ or /nS/ at the end.  With me, it was the first one; with
> her, the second.
>
> Yours,
> Paul Johnston
> On Apr 22, 2008, at 6:26 PM, David Borowitz wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       David Borowitz <borowitz at STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: ghoti = fish
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 3:11 PM, Matthew Gordon
> > <gordonmj at missouri.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> ti is sh, as in mention, attention, &c.
> >
> >
> > A bit off-topic, but the 'ti' in both of those is pretty clearly
> > [tS] for me
> > and not [S]. Wikipedia gives 'ti' as in 'nation', which is better
> > for me. My
> > question is, do we think 'mention' with [S] might be a mistake on
> > the part
> > of the author, or was that a valid BE pronunciation 100-150 years
> > ago? (Or
> > is it a valid BE pronunciation today?)
> >
> > --
> > It is better to be quotable than to be honest.
> > -Tom Stoppard
> >
> > Borowitz
> >
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