[HN Gopher] Ghoti ___________________________________________________________________ Ghoti Author : perihelions Score : 167 points Date : 2023-03-26 15:16 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (english.stackexchange.com) (TXT) w3m dump (english.stackexchange.com) | loloquwowndueo wrote: | Reminds me always of Mark Twain's hilarious Plan for improvement | of English spelling. | https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.html | AdmiralAsshat wrote: | I wonder if he wrote that before or after studying German. His | famous essay on it actually noted its phonetic spelling as a | pro. [0] | | [0] https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html | dang wrote: | Uh oh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587507 | | (it actually originates in a 1946 issue of Astounding Science | Fiction. Sometimes the truth is stranger than astounding | science fiction) | svat wrote: | To be clear: the essay "The Awful German Language" is | indeed by Mark Twain, while the short note "A Plan for the | Improvement of English Spelling" is not. | Chinjut wrote: | As with so many things attributed to Mark Twain, this was not | written by Mark Twain. According to | https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain: | | Actual source: A letter to The Economist (16 January 1971), | written by one M.J. Shields (or M.J. Yilz, by the end of the | letter). The letter is quoted in full in one of Willard Espy's | Words at Play books. This was a modified version of a piece | "Meihem in ce Klasrum", published in the September 1946 issue | of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. | smoyer wrote: | My grandmother introduced me to this when I was in elementary | school - https://www.exploratorium.edu/files/exhibits/ladle/ | kibwen wrote: | And this more recent version of the joke, "English to become | official language of the EU": | https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/2o4rkq/english_to_be... | [deleted] | panzi wrote: | Did they back then pronounce i and y the same way? Or do I | mispronounce year and it should sound like eear? | Falkon1313 wrote: | As the saying goes, "Y is a crooked letter and can't be made | straight.", although that has totally different meaning. | | Similarly, the y in 'finally' makes an i sound (as in the i | in 'machine'), while the y in 'tyrant' makes a different i | sound (as in the i in 'finally'), and of course the y in | 'year' makes yet another totally different sound. And then of | course you have 'lye' and 'lie', which sound the same but | with very different meanings. | | That is what these jokes were about, simplifying so that each | letter has only one sound and a spoken word can only be | spelled one way while a written word can only be pronounced | one way. | | It doesn't work and is silly because letters take their | sounds from context, combination, and position, as does the y | in 'year'. And there aren't enough letters for all the sounds | in English. | panzi wrote: | Well, one could use IPA. :P | dheera wrote: | Reminds me of the English word "gaol". | rmk wrote: | I could barely understand the last sentence! Thank you for this | hilarious passage. | capableweb wrote: | Me neither. Thankfully, technology to the rescue: | | > What does this mean? | | > Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi | wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy- | spiking werld. | | >> This text seems to be an example of a proposed spelling | reform for the English language. The author has purposefully | misspelled words to demonstrate how this reform would change | the current spelling system. Here is a translation of the | text into standard English: | | >> "Finally, then, after some 20 years of orthographic | reform, we would have a logical, coherent spelling in use | throughout the English-speaking world." | | >> The text suggests that after 20 years of implementing | changes to the spelling system, the English-speaking world | would have a more logical and coherent spelling system. | drowsspa wrote: | Funnily enough it was pretty easy for me as a native | Portuguese speaker | csa wrote: | I'm not sure whether I'm proud or embarrassed that I didn't | need to slow down for that part. | | _linguistics nerd flex_ | dav_Oz wrote: | Concerning "pronunciation-vs-spelling" the Tibetan script has one | of the most (egregious) mismatches.[0][1] | | So, relatively speaking, written English is just slightly worse | than Hangul.[2] | | [0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=btn0-Vce5ug | | [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_script | | [2]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K53oCDZPPiw | dang wrote: | Related: | | _Ghoti_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23581841 - June | 2020 (239 comments) | | _Ghoti_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2296927 - March | 2011 (3 comments) | anonymousiam wrote: | Not sure where it came from, but it's very old. My dad (who was | a school teacher) presented it to me 50 years ago. | kuhewa wrote: | Ghoti papers is a type of article in the journal Fish and | Fisheries which say it was a George Bernard Shaw joke | DiscourseFan wrote: | To the contrary of most people, I think that English spelling is | actually excellent because the spelling tells you less about | actual phonology than etymology, and from there you can derive | the pronunciation, thus the script is able to accomodate the | accurate representations (phonologically) of every word from | every language. There is no other language where people care | about the correct pronunciation of words, because in most other | languages the realm of possibility for the representation of | sounds is extremely limited (take, for example, Hindi, with its | supposedly phonetic script). Whereas Roman script can represent | the accurate pronunciation of every word in Hindi, the Devanagari | cannot even come close to representing all English words, not | even all words written in Roman--which is probably why Roman | script is becoming a dominant writing system in South Asia. | [deleted] | cycomanic wrote: | So you can tell me the etymology of tear (liquid from your | eyes) and tear (like a ripped paper) from the spelling? | jamincan wrote: | English is way too irregular for this to work. Good examples | are reign vs. sovereign and isle vs. island. The etymologies | aren't linked and the modern spellings are basically due to | scholars presuming the etymologies are linked and adjusting | their spelling to reflect that. | croes wrote: | How would you pronounce "read"? | | As read or read? | cycomanic wrote: | Similarly: the tear through my a Achilles tendon brought a | tear to my eyes. | GoatOfAplomb wrote: | Read, obviously. | illiarian wrote: | I always read `ea` in `read` as in `lead`, it's easy to | memorise | | :-) | [deleted] | anonymousiam wrote: | How do you pronounce the name of the town Reading, PA? | | https://www.howtopronounce.com/reading-pennsylvania-2 | Symbiote wrote: | Now the common American mis-pronunciation of Reading in | England makes no sense. It's the same! | NeoTar wrote: | In the town of Reading in the UK there was at least one | 'Reading Book Shop' to ensure it made sense in either of | the possible common pronunciations | tines wrote: | > Whereas Roman script can represent the accurate pronunciation | of every word in Hindi | | Isn't this only true if you already know how Hindi specifically | is supposed to be pronounced? I don't think you could show | someone a romanized Hindi text and expect them to even come | close to an accurate pronunciation. For example, doesn't Hindi | have like six ways of making the English "D" sound? | | Same thing for e.g. Chinese, you can't represent tones with | unaugmented Roman characters. | illiarian wrote: | > because in most other languages the realm of possibility for | the representation of sounds is extremely limited | | What. | | Most other languages do not shy away from having _more_ ways of | presenting sounds native to that language than English. | | There are 24 consonant and 25 vowel phonemes in Received | Pronunciation alone. All inadequately represented by just 22 | letters. | aidenn0 wrote: | This isn't always true; see e.g. rain versus reign. | croisillon wrote: | obligatory mention of "the chaos" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos | throwawaaarrgh wrote: | English is really four languages (Germanic, French, Latin, Old | Norse) that have been corrupted and morphed into an insanity of | unnecessarily complex structures. The linguistic equivalent of | four different cars taken apart and turned into an economy | tractor race car used for pizza deliveries. Yes, it can go fast | and deliver pizza to a farmer. But I wouldn't wanna learn to | drive the bastard. | Xenoamorphous wrote: | Oh man, even if English is a pretty simple language having to | learn the pronunciation of every word is tough... | | I remember when I was mispronouncing _recipe_ and no one had a | clue what I meant (it wasn't even in a cooking context). I was | dumfounded when I found out how words like _tomb_ or _womb_ are | pronounced. Or how about _colonel_? Or how _nation_ is pronounced | differently as a whole word vs when it's part of _national_. | | In contrast Spanish must be a bitch to learn as an adult due to | all the verb tenses, but once you know the pronunciation rules | you can read anything correctly even if you have no clue what | you're saying. | 13of40 wrote: | My wife has been in the US for about 25 years at this point, | and we just had our talk about how to pronounce February, | Wednesday, and turmeric yesterday. | wincy wrote: | I don't like the correct people when they say Wed-ness-day | though. I wish I lived in a world where the pronunciation | made sense like that. | jgtrosh wrote: | > In contrast Spanish [...] you can read anything correctly | even if you have no clue what you're saying. | | Except for the letter X which has 3 pronunciations, and some | other weird stuff. Admittedly, nothing as bad as French or | English. | MrJohz wrote: | The trick with French is not to think about it in terms of | individual letters, but rather letter clusters, and then it | becomes fairly regular. The individual letters can do wild | things, but a given combination of letters generally has | fairly clear rules about how it should be spoken. This is | very different to English where, for example, "ough" can be | pronounced in several different ways just by putting | different letters in front of it. (oo, uff, ow, uh, oh, etc). | mmmmmbop wrote: | Or Kansas (can-zuhs) vs. Arkansas (ar-kin-saw). | rfmoz wrote: | The languages that hadnt had an early written grammar, have | nowadays a close relationship between the spelling and the | written form. | toiletfuneral wrote: | (waiting for the 90's Christian rock kids to show up in this | thread) | croisillon wrote: | You seem to be kind of shadowban (not sure what the proper term | is), you might want to write an email to the hn moderation to | clear that up | Kim_Bruning wrote: | I figured out the gh at one point. Gh used to be its own phoneme. | It slowly phased out of spoken english and got replaced by semi- | random similar sounding phonemes. This g(h)/ch phoneme still | exists in dutch and german though, and once you know about it you | start finding a lot of cognates between the languages! | Simplicitas wrote: | Every time this comes up someone shares the joke about the | European Union's changes to the English language .. | NoZebra120vClip wrote: | Reminds me now of "The Tough Coughs as he Ploughs the Dough", | collected works by Dr. Seuss. | IshKebab wrote: | In fairness how many languages have letters that are always | pronounced the same _regardless of context_? Even languages with | highly regular pronunciation like Italian have letters that are | pronounced differently depending on the other letters around | them. | | The o in women is really the only one that is completely | irregular. The others follow.. not rules, but at least | heuristics. | | I'm not defending English pronunciation. It's clearly a mess. But | this feels like a disingenuous way to demonstrate that. (Yeah I | know it's clearly a joke.) | frosted-flakes wrote: | > In fairness how many languages have letters that are always | pronounced the same regardless of context? | | Finnish does. But the Finnish language only gained a writing | system in common usage relatively recently, in the 1800s. | shadowofneptune wrote: | Th@ prablem with a sist@matic, fonetic chanj in Inglish speling | is that it ras@s th@ questy@n of wat acsent tu fav@r. F@r an | @merican en Ohio, this transcriptsh@n prabable maks s@m sens, | wuns yu get past th@ shwa. I dout an Inglishman or ev@n a Nu | York@r wud find it yusful. | Majestic121 wrote: | That is surprisingly easy to read, even though I'm not a native | English speaker | posterboy wrote: | But this is not phonetic. The Is in "Inglish" are hardly the | same in any dialect. | | And it doesn't solve the problem on the graphematic level. It | ought to allow anyone to read the chosen dialect | phonetically. But it suffers from an arbitrary choice of | glyphs, so I have no idea how to pronounce eg. _an_ (an | actual problem I have pondered today is _a-typical_ ). | | Conversely, if the spelling ought to be predictable for | language learners, you are probably better of learning | Mandarin (^_^) | Claude_Shannon wrote: | Same | getoj wrote: | Thr is anthr wy, whch ws dscvred ntrlly by early intrnt usrs: | txt spk essntlly rduces englsh spllng to an abjad lk Arbc. Lk | Arbc, Englsh is vry cnsnant hvy, and dialctl dffrnces are almst | entrly vriashns n vwl qualty, so an abjad is the prfct wrtng | systm fr us. | | The perfect English abjad would use diacritics to mark vowels | and some clever way to identify syllable boundaries (so you can | distinguish ideal from idyll). But alas, we're probably stuck | with an alphabetic script forever. | duskwuff wrote: | > ntrlly | | This one took a moment. (It's "naturally", not "neutrally" or | "entirely".) | | The rest is surprisingly readable. | skrause wrote: | Spanish has as much accent variation as English and has managed | to develop a reasonable spelling where you know how to | pronounce a vast majority of words just by reading them. The | spelling doesn't have to be phonetic, just consistent. It | should work for English, too. | lucb1e wrote: | So how do we fix it? I remember Dutch having had a spelling | reform at some point, and I'm pretty sure I've heard of similar | things in both German and French. Does English (in any country or | group of collaborating countries) have a standardization body or | some volunteer group of people that might publish optional | guidelines that people could follow? | | Making it all consistent overnight would result in nobody being | able to read (let alone write) the language anymore, but | incremental tweaks that are gradual, obvious, and consistent | could be doable. | zokier wrote: | English is distinct in the sense that there is no one claiming | authority over the language the way French Academy rules over | French, or similar organizations in other languages. Simply put | there is no right or wrong way to write English | skrause wrote: | > _Simply put there is no right or wrong way to write | English_ | | Gud tu nou. | chasing wrote: | Is it broken? | | Also, language is an evolving tool that we all co-own. If you | want to see a change, modify how you write. People do this all | the time. If it's a good idea, maybe it'll catch on. | Kamq wrote: | > So how do we fix it? | | I don't think we can, at least not while preserving its value. | For one, english started as basically a pidgin or creole from | the british isles being invaded by so many groups over | centuries, so we're not starting off at the best place. Two, | the other examples of spelling reform I'm aware of are either | from highly centralized places (the French empire), or small | groups of countries that border each other (German spelling | reform). There's not really a way to get the US, UK, India, and | parts of Africa to agree on how something is pronounced (and | therefore agree on what the proper spelling should be). | | The only way to "fix" it would be to have each country (or | region within a country potentially), reform the language in a | different way, which would destroy most of the value of having | so many people in disparate places speak that language and be | able to communicate. | tgv wrote: | > I remember Dutch having had a spelling reform at some point | | Several. But for an easy grapheme-phoneme correspondence, you'd | better look to Spanish. You can learn that in an hour or two. | | > incremental tweaks | | will slowly render older texts unreadable. Nobody (ok, almost | nobody) can read old Dutch texts. Even 19th century Dutch is | awkward to read. | occamrazor wrote: | German also has almost deterministic pronounciation rules. | Italian too, except for the position of the stress. | jamincan wrote: | Much of the differences between British and American spellings | are due to Webster's attempt at spelling reform in the early | 19th century. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-26 23:00 UTC)