Posted by Nina on November 07, 2000 at 04:19:32 from 155.205.65.187:
In Reply to: Re: For lovers of English English posted by David Brooks on November 06, 2000 at 15:52:50:
The Bernard Shaw fish = ghoti thing is very clever but in terms of linguistic soundness, it ranks right up there with the Great Eskimo Snow Vocabulary Hoax! No native or near-native English speaker would read ghoti and think 'fish' they'd think [if anything] goatee - because that's how *these* sounds work in *these* word positions.
Agree with the other point, though - the think I love about English [one of the many things] is that once a community has it, however they've acquired it, they can do pretty much what they like with it. There are more varieties of English - not talking about dialects - than any other language I can think of.