Saw a picture on Facebook that said: If the "gh" sound in enouGH is pronounced "F" & the O in WOMEN makes the short "I" sound & the TI in natIOn is pronounced "SH" then the word "GHOTI" is pronounced just like "FISH" What other words can you think of that fall into this category?
It's all about context dude and that is why we have a dictionary so people dont mistake 'fish' for 'ghoti'.
Here's a poem you might find interesting. I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you, On hiccough, thorough, lough and through? Well done! And now you wish, perhaps, To learn of less familiar traps? Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard and sounds like bird, And dead: it's said like bed, not bead - For goodness sake don't call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother, Nor both in bother, broth in brother, And here is not a match for there Nor dear and fear for bear and pear, And then there's dose and rose and lose - Just look them up - and goose and choose, And cork and work and card and ward, And font and front and word and sword, And do and go and thwart and cart - Come, come, I've hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Man alive! I'd mastered it when I was five! EDIT: The site I was on made it look like two poems, but I think it's supposed to be one. There are a whole bunch more here if you liked that one: http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/poems.php
The whole "ghoti" thing is actually incorrect. "Gh" cannot be pronounced like "f" if it is at the start of a word. Furthermore "ti" is only pronounced "sh" if the "i" is followed by certain vowels, followed by a consonant. Instead of thinking of these as exceptions to a rule, think of them as a rule with a number of exceptions. For example: Patient, sentient. Most languages have inconsistencies/ exceptions to every rule, however the English language has more than most as a result of its extremely diverse origins. I dunno how to find a list of languages from which English is heavily derived but these are a few: Latin Celtic/ Gaelic French Germanic Norse/other Scandinavian Arabic Italian Hebrew Greek