“You write potato, I write ghoughpteighbteau”

The Economist has a fascinating headline for its article on the well-known problems of English spelling (which have been dealt with before in the Tulgey Wood): “You write potato, I write ghoughpteighbteau” (with “gh” = p, from ‘hiccough’; “ough” = o, from ‘though’; “pt” = t, from ‘pterodactyl’; “eigh” = a, from ‘eight’; “bt” = t, from ‘debt’; and “eau” = o, from ‘beau’).

Why now?, we may wonder …

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ghour awl “ghoti” eackspirts

I’m sure that you chose to read this contribution for one of the following reasons:
a) you recognized one of the words in the title
b) you haven’t got a clue what this is about, but would like to find out
c) out of pity with the author of this blog

To all of you, I say “thank you”, and may the rest of the article reward you 🙂
As already hinted at in option (a), there is one famous word in the title, and it’s “ghoti”. And the reason it’s famous is because it is a particularly memorable word for proving that English orthography is …

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