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Ghoti

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Re: Ghoti

#131

Post by Xenoamorphous »

dakiol wrote: post #50

As a non-English speaker, I find the English spoken by non-native speakers far easier to understand and deal with than the English spoken by Americans/British. I work with Germans, Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch and I understand them 99% of the time. We use "normal" words (we are not fancy regarding vocabulary) and pronounce them in a non-native way (the way all Europeans that speak English understand)... But the…

I’ve experienced the same. I’d say people tend to speak way faster in their native tongue.

Regardless, it is very frustrating to know the meaning and the spelling of an English word but not knowing how to pronounce it. Or the inverse, hearing a word I know but not recognising it until someone spells it for me or I see it written.

I learnt most of my English in written form so this happened to me a lot when I moved to London for a couple of years. I remember pronouncing “recipe” like “ree-syp” and my boss had no clue what I meant.

With Spanish and other languages you can learn the pronunciation rules and you’ll be able to read a text correctly even if you don’t know the words. With English you have basically to learn every word, as double o doesn’t sound the same in “door” as in “soon”. I remember being dumbfounded by the pronunciation of words like “tomb” or “womb” or “colonel”.

Re: Ghoti

#132

Post by tmountain »

lemming wrote: post #54
dakiol wrote: post #50

As a non-English speaker, I find the English spoken by non-native speakers far easier to understand and deal with than the English spoken by Americans/British. I work with Germans, Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch and I understand them 99% of the time. We use "normal" words (we are not fancy regarding vocabulary) and pronounce them in a non-native way (the way all Europeans that speak English understand)... But the…

FWIW I’m a native English speaker and the same happened to me when I learned Spanish. I suspect that with any language, native speakers have a much wider vocabulary and use more colloquialisms, not to mention speaking much faster and more cultural references etc.

Same for me. I speak "North American" Spanish fluently. I struggle with Cuban, Argentine, and Chilean Spanish. My sweet spot is non-native speakers, as the vocab is usually simplified.

Re: Ghoti

#133

Post by spoiler »

There was also a meme going around that one can spell "potato" like "Ghoughphtheightteeau" with the following explanation:

- gh for P as in "hiccough"

- ough for O as in "dough"

- phth for T as in "phthisis"

- eigh for A as in "neighbour"

- tte for T as in "gazette"

- eau for O as in "plateau"

edit: formatting

Re: Ghoti

#134

Post by agar »

tryauuum wrote: post #129
anamexis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head, "nigh" is a counterexample.

Yes, you are right. I should have said «..."ough" at the end of a word hints heavily ...» I am kind of pissed off how article attacks english language. Of course if you interpreter a letter without a context you will have silly results!

As I'm sure many will jump in to say, "ough" is an unfortunate example.

"A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

Re: Ghoti

#135

Post by tsimionescu »

Koshkin wrote: post #95
jrockway wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. A good example in English is Mary/marry/merry. Many speakers pronounce all three words identically, but many speakers distinguish them. Should the spelling be unified? Probably not, because they are three separate words that might sometimes sound the same in speech. Simplifying spelling removes any way of distinguishing them. English is filled with homophones, and while you can almost always figure out which…

At the other end of the spectrum, ‘row’ has two different pronunciations (each with its own meaning).

The most fun example to me is read/read, especially paired with reed/red.

Re: Ghoti

#136

Post by tryauuum »

agar wrote: post #134
tryauuum wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are right. I should have said «..."ough" at the end of a word hints heavily ...» I am kind of pissed off how article attacks english language. Of course if you interpreter a letter without a context you will have silly results!

As I'm sure many will jump in to say, "ough" is an unfortunate example. "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

hn proves again that I don't know english

Re: Ghoti

#137

Post by tom_ »

tryauuum wrote: post #123

I think this example is far-fetched and, due to being so far-fetched, is useless. I mean there are no actual english words where "gh" at the beginning of a word would be pronounced as "f", right? And "gh" at the end of a word hints heavily that you should pronounce it as "f", there are no irregularities here.

Riiiiight, so obviously you personally have no problems with the spelling rules of English (which do, in general, exist, contrary to popular belief). But, we need to ask ourselves: if it is at all conceivable that "ghoti" could be sounded out as "fish", just what the fuck is going on here?

Sure, you don't have a problem dealing with this nonsense - I don't have one neither! But I struggle to believe that you've failed to notice that a lot of people do.

Who is this system here to serve?

Could it not be improved?

Re: Ghoti

#138

Post by tdeck »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #96
tdeck wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically language reforms "solve" this problem by standardizing on whatever dialect is considered most broadly prestigious (often the dialect of the capital city).

Yeah, we already did this quite a while ago. In 2020, which capital will you choose? London, Delhi, D.C., Canberra, &c. &c.?

In AmE the dialect would likely be "midwestern speech" since the political history of our "standard dialect" differs from that of many other countries. I would expect with English it might be best to consider the different major dialects separately, but at any point there's a tradeoff and someone gets the short end of the stick. The right way would probably be to bring in many different stakeholders from different speaking communities and hash out some compromises.

Incidentally, I was once chatting with a member of the English Spelling Society (they advocate spelling reform) and asked about this very topic. Shockingly it seemed like that group hadn't thought about it all.

Re: Ghoti

#139

Post by monoideism »

dakiol wrote: post #50

As a non-English speaker, I find the English spoken by non-native speakers far easier to understand and deal with than the English spoken by Americans/British. I work with Germans, Italians, Spaniards, French, Dutch and I understand them 99% of the time. We use "normal" words (we are not fancy regarding vocabulary) and pronounce them in a non-native way (the way all Europeans that speak English understand)... But the…

> As a non-English speaker, I find the English spoken by non-native speakers far easier to understand and deal with than the English spoken by Americans/British.

As you allude to, that's typical for any speakers of any foreign language, in my experience. I speak several languages in addition to English, and native speakers of those languages are often the hardest to understand, because they're the most fluent in the language.

Re: Ghoti

#140

Post by tryauuum »

tom_ wrote: post #137
tryauuum wrote: post #123

I think this example is far-fetched and, due to being so far-fetched, is useless. I mean there are no actual english words where "gh" at the beginning of a word would be pronounced as "f", right? And "gh" at the end of a word hints heavily that you should pronounce it as "f", there are no irregularities here.

Riiiiight, so obviously you personally have no problems with the spelling rules of English (which do, in general, exist, contrary to popular belief). But, we need to ask ourselves: if it is at all conceivable that "ghoti" could be sounded out as "fish", just what the fuck is going on here? Sure, you don't have a problem dealing with this nonsense - I don't have one neither! But I struggle to believe that you've faile…

(maybe I do not understand the definition of "conceivable") I think it is totally inconceivable that someone would read this word as "fish"! It would require extreme amount of mind-bending!

Maybe this is why I am so angry with this article. They could have picked less artificial example to demonstrate irregularities.

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