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Fish (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by DoesWhatSimonSays

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[–]TheOnlyUsernameLeft3 145 points146 points ago

I fucking hate that this says "PROUNCED" instead of "PRONOUNCED".

[–]AAARRRGGG1 26 points27 points ago

I dont say wimen, i say women.

[–]buttaids 2 points3 points ago

How do you personally differentiate woman/women in speech? (IPA if you're comfortable with it.)

[–]rosstronica 2 points3 points ago

/ˈwʊmən/ for the singular,
/ˈwɪmɪn/ for the plural form.

[–]CrispyPudding 1 point2 points ago

how do you differentiate man and men? doesn't seem so important to me.

[–]Chrischn89 2 points3 points ago

How do you say 'womanly'?

[–]Tiktaky 1 point2 points ago

I just spent a good 3 minutes saying "woman" and "women" to work out how I say it.

Both times I said "Woah-man" even if I was trying to say "women" I'm finding it really hard to pronounce "men" and "man" differently when I put the "woah" in front of it.

[–]mikkowus 1 point2 points ago

Same. Closest I ever get is something like "wohimin" And if i think about it, i probably don't ever say it myself and maybe heard it in a movie or something.

[–]FaerieStories -1 points0 points ago

Same, don't recall ever hearing anyone pronouncing it 'wimmen'. Maybe that's an American thing.

[–]Sopps 108 points109 points ago

Wrong

Linguists have pointed out that the placement of the letters in the constructed word is in fact inconsistent with the claimed pronunciation, that the expected pronunciation in English is as in goatee. Wikipedia

[–]PartyButton 7 points8 points ago

thanks, this image/word drive me bonkers

[–]kolm 4 points5 points ago

That is the whole point I think. Phoneme formation from letters depends on a set of rather mystical rules -- "ghi" in laughing makes "fi", while "gho" in "ghost" makes "go". Or take give -- agile, somehow the a makes all the difference. Or word -- sword, what's the s doing with the wo there?

And then the argument is that when we have such opaque rules for phoneme formation, we could just as well arbitrarily assign phonemes and be not worse off or more confusing.

[–]penguindeskjob 4 points5 points ago

Well, that's written language. There's nothing about <p> that makes /p/ any more like p. Because we have 26 letters, but RP has upwards to 44 phonemes, SAE has 39-40, and AE has 43-40, and all share a historic origin--and same with writing--having a unified spelling is quite useful for not only international (and interdialectal communication), but also for grammatical reasons. We say "You don't", but "Donchya" (I'm not even bothering with phonemic transcription right now.) Learning that it's "You don't" but "Donchya" seems about as arbitrary and mystical as English spelling rules are now.

[–]crinklypaper 1 point2 points ago

Can't we just make rules for each particular situation either way? I'm just starting my linguistics major so I'm not entirely educated on this stuff yet.

[–]AThievingStableBoy 6 points7 points ago

That makes sense if you read the word 'ghoti' as a whole. However, it seems the point being raised is that letter combinations in the English language do not consistently correspond to the phonemes which they represent. If you remove the context from the provided letter combinations and reconstruct them to form the word 'ghoti' then it is, in fact, pronounced 'fish'.

[–]Sopps 15 points16 points ago

If you remove the context from the provided letter combinations

But context is important to the English language so this means little.

[–]AThievingStableBoy 7 points8 points ago

You are correct that in-word context is very important to the English language, and affects greatly the phoneme which we associate with any given letter combination. I think that is actually the point of this post: letter combinations in most other languages do not fluctuate with context as much as they do in English words. I am not a linguist and cannot verify the validity of this claim. I am just pointing out that this is the claim the OP makes.

[–]Cormophyte 1 point2 points ago

Came here, saw top post, got annoyed that people were taking the point out of context...that English pronunciation is heavily dependent on context...and was happy someone tackled it two minutes before I got here.

[–]phishf00d 4 points5 points ago

Concrete example - the rule is not "ti" = "sh" its tion = "shun". We could make the same flawed argument that "time" should be pronounced "timmy" by referencing letters in other contexts.

[–]AThievingStableBoy 0 points1 point ago

There is not a flaw in my argument because I'm not arguing that this is how the English language works. The point OP makes is that if you remove letter combinations from their contexts, then you can make funny words. Nobody, at any point, has claimed that 'ghoti' is actually pronounced 'fish' or 'time' pronounced 'timmy'. You are completely misunderstanding this thread.

[–]JonWolfe 11 points12 points ago

I came to leave a comment explaining that OP was wrong, only to discover you had already done so. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to help keep this world a better place by informing the incorrect of their inaccuracies.

[–]LuridTeaParty 1 point2 points ago

Whatever is correct aside, do you feel that spelling shouldn't be limited to have 1:1 relationships with the various sounds we have in the spoken context and their spelling, and that the issue brought up in the image isn't a legitimate one to question?

You could say that a written language without these kinds of complexities makes for a dull language, and stifles lucid communication of what we're thinking, but look at any number system like decimal. 10 digits (among the myriad of operators, granted), and yet all of math is expressed in those few simple symbols.

[–]m3tathesis 5 points6 points ago

You can think of written languages as a time portal into the past. The spelling used to reflect a 1:1 relationship, but unfortunately, spoken language evolves much faster than written language. So, even if we were to invent a written language that reflects a 1:1 relationship, in a few hundred years, the people will be complaining about the same exact thing.(Globalization aside, which is choosing to standardize the language, stifling change.)

TL;DR Spoken language evolves faster than written language, so written language is just a history book on pronunciation.

Not a huge contributor to /r/linguistics, but I think I should point people that way.

[–]Dekar173 5 points6 points ago

Languages have a natural tendency, through a little thing called context, to weed out dumb people.

[–]The_Comma_Splicer 4 points5 points ago

And yet here you are, forming complete sentences and everything.

(Sorry...I couldn't resist.)

[–]Dekar173 1 point2 points ago

You could at least put the period on the outside of the closing parenthesis, you barbarian.

[–]LuridTeaParty 1 point2 points ago

That's like saying someone who doesn't get an inside joke doesn't understand humor.

An engineer who's built a remarkable set of skills working with obsolete machinery might consider themselves well rounded and can spot a rookie's mistake attempting the same job, but it doesn't lend that machine any more credit for being a better machine. It just says more about an engineer willing to stick with and think creatively with old ideas to make new ones.

[–]Dekar173 1 point2 points ago

Yes a novice (let's say someone learning english as a second language) will make mistakes, but if they are intelligent enough they will stop making those mistakes.

Idiots continue to make the same mistake.

Smart people are just better at using tools, regardless of whether it's a language, or a literal tool such as a wrench. Dumb people suck.

[–]JonWolfe 1 point2 points ago

I actually feel the English alphabet is too small and that's why we have all these phonetically differing expressions using the same letters. However, I feel Asianic languages like Cantonese and Mandarin have too many letters/symbols thus leading to confusion and a decrease in overall rhetorical expression. (<- that's why, I think, Asianic poetry is so bad)

The English language needs about 30-34 letters to be phonetically capable.

[–]penguindeskjob 3 points4 points ago

Phonemically capable. And no, we get by (see my previous post.) Asianic languages get by not writing in the Latin alphabet, which is difficult to process suprasegmental features such as tones and pitches (it can be done, but not easily; Ancient Greek had a pitch accent, which when was represented, was represented very accurately; on the other hand, Old Norse must have had a pitch-accent if Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian are any indicator, yet was never represented in writing.) On the other hand, logographic scripts are excellent when the language is highly-dependent on very constrained root-shapes, word-boundaries are much less clear, and homophones run high until context in word-position or morpheme position (that is, position within a word) make it clear--it reduces a lot of confusion in that way. Yuen Ren Chao made it quite clear why the Latin script is useless for Chinese.

Of course, this only goes for Sinitic languages. Southeast Asian languages can get by with other means, i.e., Brahmic scripts and Vietnamese isn't too terrible in the Latin script because it has fewer homophones than Chinese. Korean utilizes Hangeul, which is highly phonemic, if only because of its relative age to other spelling systems. Japanese gets by with pure force of will and determination.

[–]JonWolfe 2 points3 points ago

I cannot rebuttle for we have extended beyond my scholarly understanding of languages. I will concede to your points and arguments.

P.S.: The Japanese comment made me laugh uproariously.

[–]penguindeskjob 1 point2 points ago

Math is non-symbolic and extremely concrete, whereas language is the opposite: non-concrete and extremely symbolic. Mathematics is universal to everyone, whereas language is extremely indvidual and dependent on a variety of factors.

Language requires the brain to do a few things, besides process symbolic messages--it also requires the use of the mouth to generate sounds. The brain doesn't distinguish individual sounds as concrete members (which are called phones.) The brain processes phonemes, which are abstract representations of sound and are entirely dependent on contrasting factors. For instance, English /p/ can be realized as [p], [pʰ], or [b], and /b/ can be /b/ or /p/, depending on the circumstances--those circumstances don't make the phones contrastive, but they're understood as the same phoneme in different circumstances. These are called allophones. Allophonic distinction cannot be grammaticized until factors cause them to be contrastive (per sound change.) Field linguists test for allophones/phonemes based on minimal pairs.

For instance, bin and pin can sometimes be pronounced [pɪn] and [pʰɪn] for /bɪn/ and /pɪn/. Or pin and spin can be pronounced [pʰɪn] and [spɪn] (the superscript h represents aspiration, which is a puff of air released after a plosive.) And becomes allophones are based on environment and are non-grammatical, they can be different per dialect and language, they become learnable factors in language.

Alphabetic writing is a representation of phonemes (not phones!) into a glyph. The brain doesn't want to process phonemes into glyphs (which implies that the intended reader can understand it), it wants to process phones into glyphs--which is highly counterintuitive because it's not what the brain does for language. Whence also spelling errors--the brain processes phones into glyphs, which means spelling mistakes always come through. Punctuation and capitalization is non-grammatical (well, sort of, that requires some further explanation. Punctuation represents natural breaks, pauses, and natural intonation of speech--but not always. The most honest punctuation mark is the period)--so we often have problems with that. The most phonemic of writing, written Spanish and written Korean, are not immune to spelling mistakes. Because we write phones, not phonemes; yet we process phonemes, not phones, in spoken language.

On the other hand, numbers are constant. Mathematics don't change. You may be in a different numerical base, such as 10 in duodecimal is equal to 12 in decimal (hey, ever wonder why eleven and twelve are so distinct in Germanic languages? Because we use to count in base-12. It's easier to process halves, quarters, and thirds--which is more natural. Base-10 can only naturally divide by 2 and 5, which doesn't lend to fractioning well. Romans counted in base-10 for all integers, but all fractions were in base-12 because it's more intuitive.)

tl;dr Numbers are concrete, spoken language at the most basic level is based on grammaticized contrasts between sounds.

PS A man has written a program in response to ghoti being pronounced /fɪʃ/. It also shows that English is spelling is 85% accurate, which is pretty good all things considered.

[–]zlap 1 point2 points ago

You must surely be joking about mathematics. Greek alphabet, Latin alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, blackboard letters, gothic letters, Italic letters, and still plenty of omonymic symbols.

Mathematic notation is a mess, compared to which spelling is a sip of cold crystal clear water.

[–]SenatorCrabHat 2 points3 points ago

doing good work.

[–]crinklypaper 3 points4 points ago

Every language has a grammar :D We can make rules for these kind of constructions. Phonology bitches.

[–]Nohoshi 2 points3 points ago

Every language has a grammar

Still trying to wrap my head around that.

[–]penguindeskjob 3 points4 points ago

Want your mind to be blown? Everyone speaks their own language, which has a complete set of grammar, called an ideolect. This grammar, when comprehensible enough to another person's ideolect, constitutes a dialect. Comprehensible dialects constitute a language (however sociopolitical factors apply--certain languages are dialects of other languages, if only because the dialect is representational of a political unit.)

Every language has a grammar, yes--a complete set of rules describing phonetics (phonology), interaction of phonetics with grammar (morphophonology), individual grammatical portions (morphemes) that aren't quite words, and interactions of these individual elements (syntax).

Written language, however, is non-grammatical. It's an abstract representation of language. Everything about writing is non-natural and requires mental loops to jump through. Punctuation is abstract representation of suprasegmental features (pauses and phrase-wide intonation): Spaces are word boundaries (though sometimes out of historic context, i.e., French); commas are natural pauses (but sometimes used to distinguish context, sometimes arbitrarily. Take the comma before the word "which", but you don't use one before "that", despite being used oftentimes interchangeably), periods are most honest--an actual termination in a sentence; semicolons and colons are entirely conventional; question marks are used to represent the rising intonation that remarks a question (Compare how you say, "This is a man", and "This is a man?", yet "Is this a man?" has it despite not always having that intonation); and exclamation points represent surprise, yelling, or otherwise a loud volume (so does all caps these days.)

[–]Captain_Nonsequitur 2 points3 points ago

personal favourite ideolect

[–]crinklypaper 2 points3 points ago

The thing about punctuation especially, studying premodern Japanese at the moment and those kooks use grammar to determine commas and periods essentially. While also in modern Japanese you really don't need ! or ? respectively.

[–]Tman3Z50 1 point2 points ago

I'm sure it took a linguist to figure that one out.

[–]akyser 15 points16 points ago

And if you take the gh from through, the o from [the British spelling] foetus, the t from beret and the i from business the "ghoti" is pronounced "_____".

[–]Battlemankiller 4 points5 points ago

I believe the band "Ghoti Hook" took advantage of that

http://tiny.cc/Ghotihook

[–]Doebino 2 points3 points ago

Fixed it for you all. Damn.

[–]Fa1coLombardi 5 points6 points ago

You missed the first one.

[–]illindividual 17 points18 points ago

Simon says remove this post. Do it, or delete your username.

[–]suprsqrl 4 points5 points ago

...the fuck is a prounce?

[–]slayerrye2 7 points8 points ago

Since when did the o in Women make any i sound at all?

[–]Derpi5 6 points7 points ago

I live in the southeastern US. maybe it's just here, but women is pronounced 'wimmin'

[–]KangarooLemonade 2 points3 points ago

Central Texas here, I didn't even know it was pronounced any other way.

[–]Hagathorthegr8 6 points7 points ago

A lot of people pronounce it that way where I live...

[–]jesjebs 1 point2 points ago

Yeah..... I didn't get it either.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points ago

the "TI" part doesn't work, unless you're trying to say "fishy".

[–]spamjavelin 1 point2 points ago

Negotiation. Celebration. A gazillion others I can't think of right now.

Seems to work. How are you seeing it?

[–]bretttwarwick 0 points1 point ago

it isn't that ti makes the sh sound but that tion makes the shun sound. All the letters have to be used to form the correct sound.

[–]spamjavelin 0 points1 point ago

In that case, I'm going to have to dig up one of my middle school English teachers and have a few words!

[–]bretttwarwick 0 points1 point ago

It makes since if you think about it. Can you come up with an example of a "ti" that doesn't have an "on" after it and still makes a "sh" sound?

[–]scruffylemming 0 points1 point ago

Ratio, doesn't have the N, and so the word should read GHOTIO.

[–]bretttwarwick 2 points3 points ago

But you still pronounce the "o" so GHOTIO would be pronounced fisho.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point ago

the TI makes a "shi" sound not "sh" sound, in all of those words. Also, if the "o" didn't follow, the sound wouldn't be right.

[–]less_talk_more_bacon 2 points3 points ago

Wasn't funny the first million times! Stop it

[–]gak001 2 points3 points ago

Context, context, context.

[–]MrNameless 2 points3 points ago

I opened this with a bunch of other blue links while browsing. When I decided to view my haul and reached yours, I shifted through 100s of purple links on many different pages just to find this thread again and downvote you.

This is unfunny, there are spelling errors (on a post criticizing the English language), and the point it is trying to make is in fact wrong. I award you no karma, and may God have mercy on your Soul.

[–]pocho420 2 points3 points ago

I could care less about ghoti, since it is inconsequential. But can some one explain this to me?

I before E, except after C, Or when it sounds like "A" as in neighbor or weight.

HEIGHT

[–]AngrySmapdi 2 points3 points ago

Blame it on a group of people who spoke a mostly Germanic language, then started to trade extensively with Latin speaking countries, then were repeatedly invaded by Latin speaking peoples, and eventually ended up with a ludicrous combination of the two languages.

Historically, height should be highth, to go along with length, and width; as defined as an article of measurement. However, various trends and alternating stages of literacy throughout the centuries has landed us with the world's most popular language being one of the most utterly preposterous.

[–]DhampirBoy 1 point2 points ago

I must admit that it is rather weird.

[–]liebkartoffel 0 points1 point ago

More words actually break the "I before E" rule than follow it. Thanks, QI!

[–]UZUMATI-JAMESON 2 points3 points ago

I don't get it, it just says "fish" in red letters twice.

[–]liebkartoffel 1 point2 points ago

Yeah, that only works if you're saying it out loud. This way it kind of just looks like you didn't read it very carefully.

[–]UZUMATI-JAMESON 1 point2 points ago

No, I just have a room temperature IQ.

[–]Ftumsh 2 points3 points ago

Could this be the oldest repost ever? Because 1855 called...

[–]ccsmd73 2 points3 points ago

I would like to announce to the world that my 6th grade teacher taught this to the class one day when I was out sick, then reduced me to tears when I came back by teasing me relentlessly that I didn't know how to 'properly pronouce ghoti!!!!' The whole class was roaring with laughter.

/horrible childhood flashbacks.

[–]heathersak 1 point2 points ago

FISH ASSHOLE

all puckered up down there

[–]Lucky_Striker 1 point2 points ago

My highschool English textbook attributed this joke to Francis Bacon.

[–]Jwojcek 1 point2 points ago

Repost

[–]kerdon 2 points3 points ago

Holy hell. This is ollllld. Maybe not the image itself but the whole "ghoti" thing. I remember hearing about this my first year in freakin MIDDLE SCHOOL!

[–]cheribom 2 points3 points ago

It was in my 3rd grade Spelling book. Circa 1988.

Hell there's even a band called Ghoti Hook.

[–]lemoncholly 4 points5 points ago

No shit its old. About 160 years old.

[–]AngrySmapdi 1 point2 points ago

I'm curious how many languages in the world are based on two other completely different languages, and if they have the same problems English does.

[–]skilledpringle 1 point2 points ago

seen it before but still good

[–]happyCuddleTime 0 points1 point ago

Good thing there were pictures of fish on there otherwise I wouldn't know what that word was referring to.

[–]augiferkin 1 point2 points ago

When you use "GH" at the beginning of a word, it's never pronounced as an "F" sound, e.g GHost.

[–]Chrischn89 1 point2 points ago

What 'fist' are you talking about?

[–]Ptbsbll 1 point2 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2IcO2nHqyE

[–]SteveRyherd 1 point2 points ago

Now you're just somebody that I used to kneaux.

[–]mtreef2 1 point2 points ago

My high school french teacher told me this about 7 years ago. DAMN i could've made massive karma.

[–]zathras227 1 point2 points ago

Literally was just thinking about this yesterday and was gonna go looking for it, looks like I don't have to.

[–]batpony 1 point2 points ago

wimen? what? isn't it wumen?

[–]Kenzo-san 1 point2 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVApHh5Rax4&list=PL48258D69C3DD1228&index=14&feature=plpp_video

[–]joellejay 1 point2 points ago

Dude, Neopets has been way ahead of you for years... http://i.imgur.com/vqXL9.png

[–]ezera79 1 point2 points ago

One of my favorite bands as a kid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti_Hook

[–]demeyor 1 point2 points ago

GH from ghost, O from Hot, and TI from TITS. GHOTI. Welcome to logic.

[–]FaerieStories 1 point2 points ago

Who pronounces women 'wimmen'?

[–]silvernesta 1 point2 points ago

me

[–]Quasigriz_ 0 points1 point ago

How's about this: Ross, Boss, Floss, Cross....Gross?

[–]daddy_duck_butter 1 point2 points ago

thanks for the English lesson. here's one for you: it's spelled pronounced, not prounced. dumbass.

[–]Olton 1 point2 points ago

TIOT!

[–]Pbear1204 0 points1 point ago

Well this kind of ruined my morning.

[–]asdfghjkl92 0 points1 point ago

ti = sh isn't a rule, tion = shun is the rule. you could sorta say ghotion = fission i guess.

and who the hell pronounces women wimmen?

[–]Invinciblex -1 points0 points ago

This is so stupid.

[–]aareyes12 -1 points0 points ago

Who the fuck pronounces Woman that way?

[–]senor_benzo -1 points0 points ago

Ghoti is not a word

[–]Hazy_V 0 points1 point ago

Lol like your native language doesn't have dumbass rules, idiot who reposted this.

[–]SantaIsBlack 0 points1 point ago

English isn't that hard Stop being a faggot

[–]wag_the_dog 0 points1 point ago

This is fucking stupid, and I've seen it too many times. It is not clever, and I am not a happy panda.

[–]Chrischn89 1 point2 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzpndHtdl9A

[–]TriNitroTOMuene 1 point2 points ago

flammable and inflammable mean the same thing

[–]AngrySmapdi 0 points1 point ago

Can't have a slaughter without laughter.

[–]LwrncD1 0 points1 point ago

terrible terrible. it's to do with following consonants/vowels etc. you numpty

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