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Re: HUMOUR: Pronounce This...

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 17, 2002, 17:53
H. S. Teoh scripsit:

> Of course, one can never forget "GHOTI", pronounced [fiS]. (I forgot who > invented this one, but it is constructed by taking "gh" from "enough", "o" > from "women", and "ti" from "nation".)
George Bernard Shaw. But of course this one is bogus: GH is /f/ only when syllabic final, O is /I/ *only* in the word "women" and no other, and TI is /S/ only in -tion /S@n/.
> Talk about Maggelity -- yet ironically we find English so "regular" :-)
Who ever thought that? English is one of the least regular of all alphabetic orthographies -- about 11% of the words don't conform to the rules, and the rules in question are damned complicated. -- What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the John Cowan sound of a [Ww]all that people have stopped jcowan@reutershealth.com banging their head against? --Larry http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

Replies

Pavel Iosad <pavel_iosad@...>
Tim May <butsuri@...>