Better Than Ghoti?

A lot of people have heard about George Bernard Shaw’s phonetic spelling of ghoti for fish;

• gh is pronounced as in rough.
• o is pronounced as in women.
• ti is pronounced as in nation.

Here’s a more outrageous one that I recently learned about: it’s by Godfrey Dewey in his English Spelling: Roadblock to Reading, and it’s phtheighchound for taken:

• phth is pronounced as in phthisic (also, phthisis, which has its own definition).
• eigh is pronounced as in weigh.
• ch is pronounced as in school.
• ou is pronounced as in glamour.
• nd is pronounced as in handsome.

H/T: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, second edition, by David Crystal (who has been involved with a number of interesting books about Shakespeare and language).

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The “No” of Affirmation

Have you ever heard anyone, including yourself, begin an affirmative response to a statement with the word “no”? For example:

Person 1: I think Idiocracy is hilarious.

Person 2: No, I do, too.

I promise you — you have. It’s an interesting phenomenon, since the statement is one of agreement or affirmation, yet it begins with a term of disagreement or negation. Why, you may ask? I have asked as well. Habits of speech? I would say so.

In any case, now that you’ve heard about it, you can start listening for it. You may be surprised at how often you hear it — I was (especially from myself).

(Cross-posted at Le Repository du Silliness.)

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The places to hear from me:
Food – josh lubarr food stuff
Geekiness – geekiness(josh lubarr)
Movies – Old Movies and New with Josh Lubarr
Politics – Progressive Politics (per Josh Lubarr)
Silliness and comedy – Le Repository du Silliness, avec Josh Lubarr
Favorite movies – The Pantheon
Me generally – Josh Lubarr’s web site extraordinaire
Also also – Josh’s Part of lubarr.com