How do you spell "fish"?

If GH stands for F as in cough,
if O stands for I as in women,
if TI stands for SH as in nation

then the right way to spell FISH should be GHOTI
--George Bernard Shaw

If GH stands for P as in hiccough,
if OUGH stands for O as in dough,
if PHTH stands for T as in phthisis,
if EIGH stands for A as in eight,
if TTE stands for T as in gazette,
if EAU stands for O as in plateau,

then the right way to spell POTATO should be: GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU.

(Other possible spellings of POTATO include GHOUGHPTEIGHBTEAU, GHOUGHPHTHEIGHBTEAU, GHOUGHPTEIGHTTEEAU, GHOUGHBTEIGHPTEAU, GHOUGHBTEIGHPHTHEAU, GHOUGHTTEEIGHPTEAU, and GHOUGHTTEEIGHPHTHEAU, where the "BT" sometimes sounds like T as in "debt", and the "PT" might sound like T as in "ptomain")

These words are often held up as examples of how difficult English spelling can be, but Jim Scobbie makes the argument that the examples illustrate just the opposite: If English spelling were really so awful, then Potato really would be spelled "ghoughbteightpteau"!

Related pages in this website

Go back to Spelling, further back to Structure, or all the way back to Language