Welcome to the English language.

Nefai · 7 months

Just one phonogram, ough has six different possible sounds:

oh, as in though, dough

oo, as in through

uf, as in rough, tough

off, as in cough, trough

ah, as in bought, thought

ow, as in drought, slough

I am glad it's my primary language.

kruksog · 7 months

Language is fluid; because of printing, spelling is fairly concrete, whereas pronunciation is constantly changing. There are phonological processes occurring in whatever dialect you speak right now. I guarantee it.

i.e. this post conveys a misunderstanding of language, and is just generally stupid.

stoopidquestions · 7 months

How about potato?

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 Neighbour

If TTE stands for T as in Gazette

If EAU stands for O as in Plateau

The right way to spell POTATO should be GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU!

nyohkitteh · 7 months

No. There are rules on how to pronounce sounds based on the position of the letters in a word. "gh" only makes the sound "ff" at the end of a word, never at the beginning. "ti" only makes the sound "sh" when followed by "an" or "on."

The English language has a pattern. This picture is incorrect.

Also, if "gh" was at the beginning of a word we would pronounce it like the "gh" in ghost. That's just the pattern. There is not a different symbol for each sound in the English language.

j1gette · 7 months

.....prawblem is "prounced". Should be "pronounced". Silly amateurs.

GoateeDude · 7 months

Since syllables are generally pronounced a certain way only from derivation to the original word, this example wouldn't really work this way.

Glowstyx · 7 months

IPA bitches

digitag · 7 months

PROUNCED?

RC212 · 7 months

There was a Christian band in the 90's that used this particular word in their name... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti_Hook

Anoson · 7 months

The problem with this is that you can't just take chunks of words out and slip then in somewhere else and have them be constant in pronunciation.

For example, the o in owl and the o in off aren't pronounced the same, even though they are the same letter.

throwaway_quinn · 7 months

Repost from like 1912. [ eye roll ]

[deleted] · 7 months

downvote for not only the repost, but also the fact that this is stupid

mayormauri · 7 months

Anybody else thought about Neopets when they saw "Ghoti"?

frponkus · 7 months

Pronounced, not prounced. Welcome to the English language.

horseyhorseyhorsey · 7 months

ghouch ewe

ThePhenix · 7 months

Enough was originally pronounced Eh-nokh

evilarhan · 7 months

Go on. Pronounce "gaol".

ericschlipf · 7 months

Where everything's made up and the points don't matter

GiPes · 7 months

"the" can be translated in italian in "il","lo","la","i","gli","le". Also verbs (that is just the verb belive, with all possibles variations). This is Italian, hell in language form.

hoody8 · 7 months

While the pronunciation of letters in English is hardly consistent, we can still narrow down the possible pronunciations of letters/letter clusters based on the position in the word.

For instance 'GH' is only pronounced like the letter 'F' when it occurs at the end of a word, the pronunciation of 'O' in the word 'women' (/ɪ/) is irregular and it is pronounced as either /oʊ/ or /ɒ/ in practically every other word, and 'TI' is pronounced like 'SH' only in the cluster 'TION'.

epicbroplus · 7 months

Being born in Minnesota, it took a while to realize that not everyone pronounces women like wooomen.

M0b1u5 · 7 months

I prounce this: "fale".

Hourai · 7 months

Moral of the story is: "Prounced"

ಠ_ಠ

ghoti_equals_fish · 7 months

Good thing I registered prior to this post

DistinctlyRandom · 7 months

You think English is tough?

happyFelix · 7 months

*pronounced. Welcome to the English language. :-)

linkizzl · 7 months

I think you are mispronouncing woman.

Woman: woom-uhn

Anal_Torpedo · 7 months

Because your language doesn't have any stupid rules what so ever.

Queeniebrooke · 7 months

I remember this from my nature of language class otherwise known as the mathematics of English by the English department

tomaka · 7 months

I have Hughes as a last name. You would not believe how many native English speakers think it's pronouced "Hugs" or "Hoogis".

nodoubt328 · 7 months

My friend has "Ghoti" tattooed on himself. He loves making people figure it out.

Crallium · 7 months

But... A lot of languages are like this...

ferris714 · 7 months

Yes, my sister is fascinated by this.

lolololicopter · 7 months

I saw this on Facebook before I saw it on Reddit... I don't understand how this could happen

Yelot · 7 months

LMAO My French teacher actually used these exact words about a month ago XD

MR_GOURD · 7 months

Prounced isn't a word.

norelevantcomments · 7 months

wait for it...

sl90078 · 7 months

It's pronounced "Ghoti".

TheHangOfThursday · 7 months

It's fun to pretend context doesn't matter!

dogbuddies · 7 months

old hat

chantistar · 7 months

Phonetics ftw

Mynci · 7 months

Sounds more like Welsh to me

westbush · 7 months

It all really depends on the vowels surrounding those letters.

Luckily_Clever · 7 months

LAX BRO.

ShamanChemistry · 7 months

You say "women" as "wimmin"? wtf

protip: the pronunciations and spelling have more to do with the etymology than anything else

The_Punchmaster · 7 months

It's all contextual, though. You can't use that as an example until you can name me a word that starts with gh that sounds like "f".

Same with the others.

CoyoteStark · 7 months

Repost!!!!!! Trust me guys, I'm on the internet a lot.

coreycubed · 7 months

This again? Thanks, my dad circa 1991.

alpha_guy · 7 months

i think you all just got epicly owned, since i seem to be the first to catch that he spelled pronounce, prounce

warshbucket · 7 months

Hooked on Phonics, worked for me!

DoctorPimpslap · 7 months

For your grand repost I allot you 1 downvote.

PvtToonz · 7 months

I was curious as to what the word "Ghoti" meant, so I looked it up

Prof_LaGuerre · 7 months

Also GHOTI can be a silent word, as in:

gh as in though (/ðoʊ/) ;

o as in people (/'piːpəl/) ;

t as in ballet (/'bæleɪ/) ;

i as in business (/'bɪznəs/)

... Oddly just went over this today with someone else at work. Gotta love the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Edited: Formatting

DeepDish2k9 · 7 months

Prounced?

Thrashed · 7 months

Pretty much sums this up. http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/12/23/english-pronunciation/

m0gul6 · 7 months

Dumb. Yes the English language is ridiculous, but this post is naive.

aphoodis · 7 months

I remember my English teacher telling us this on my first day of secondary school in 1990

LOOOOOOOO0OOOOOOOOOL · 7 months

ch = Č sh = Ş

Choclate = Čoclate Fish = Fiş

Remove redundant letters eg, fuck = fuk or fuc

Engliş can be easily improved.

Catch22af · 7 months

They made the English language like that so you can weed out the illegal immigrants.

Nightshade1105 · 7 months

You think, by chance, it can also be pronounced as "repost?"

Basedodin · 7 months

And we still wonder/bitch, as to why, foreigners/illegal immigrants.dont learn the English language so well, OR pick up on our hidden vernacular.

Nebakanezzer · 7 months

where are all the condescending "bwhhaha english is hard" people from the front page a few days ago?

english isnt hard because of pronunciation, or characters, or words themselves.. it's the fact that one word can mean several different things with a different inflection or tone. then, furthermore, that word can mean several different things due to context/usage. and even furthermore there are multiple different ways to say the same exact thing, all slightly different from each other.

all this without even going into all the retarded phonetic sounding of words and spelling which seem to just be anarchy on paper.

elpelado · 7 months

i call bullshit on this one

stabilo68 · 7 months

Ich werde zeigen, dass die nächste Person, die sagt, Deutsch ist schwer.

:)

xteve · 7 months

I'm hoping that as more non-native speakers spell in English its orthography will even out.

Fagel88 · 7 months

If you're going to post something that isn't OC just run it through karmadecay.com. This is a repost of a respot of a repost, and it might be on accident but it's easy to avoid. (Unless karma points are something you actually care about.)

[deleted] · 7 months

A huge part of me wonders how I am actually really talented sometimes at spelling and writing compared to other friends, yet I can't learn to pronounce and use spanish to save my life

iamfrostytom · 7 months

Spelled pronounce wrong. Twice.

LET-7 · 7 months

can someone redo this without the spitefulness?

MainManBlackDynamite · 7 months

This is the stupidest thing I have read on reddit all day. And I have been home sick from work. Congrats.

jiiiveturkay · 7 months

French is worse.

gone_ghotion · 7 months

MY TIME TO SHINE!!

kpanzer · 7 months

Chinese is the only language I know of in which your tone can determine what a word means.

Behold the Stone Lion.

Dwavico · 7 months

Old Galagher routine

rae_at_work · 7 months

TIL where Ghoti Hook got their name.

Ravenseye · 7 months

...and thanks for all the fish!

Dustin- · 7 months

I've always hated this image...

I agree about "gh". "gh" words have always been a mindfuck for me. However, the vast majority of the time, words that have "gh" somewhere in it that changes the expected pronunciation of it, the "gh" occurs at the end or near the end of the word. For example, "thorough" and "cough".
"Wimmen" is probably a mispronunciation of the word. It probably originated sounding too much like "woman", so the pronunciation changed over time. I'm just taking a shot in the dark at this, so I could be wrong.
The "ti" in "Nation" is only made to make a "sh" sound because it ends in "-tion". The same can be applied to "-sion". It would not ever be pronounced "sh" unless it had the accompanied "-on" after it.

Logic'd.

gahnzz · 7 months

Knot rili cing the prawblem.

IAmDoomsayer · 7 months

Hahaha. He thinks the english language is hard. I'm french.

jmacamckinnon · 7 months

Am i the only one who noticed that pronounced is written prounced?

icechampion1 · 7 months

the stupidity hurts

steve0bass · 7 months

Does that mean that "Ghost" is the same as "Fist"?

Enursha · 7 months

Repost

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