Setting the stage: one-room school teacher Morrie Morgan has just told his 1910 class of first through eight-grade students that the word "ghoti" can be pronounced "fish."
"Always be aware that you are at the mercy of the whim of the word. It decides how it is pronounced and what it means.
"It chooses up it's own letters, often in ways we wouldn't. And it can be a shameless mimic, by sneaking in one of those sound-alikes tucked away in the alphabet."
He spun to the blackboard again as if those devilish letters were listening there. "Preposterous as this 'fish' looks"--from somewhere he produced his pointer and went en garde with 'ghoti' as if to slay it--"it is made up of similarities perfectly well known to our tongues. Sound it out for yourselves," he whapped through the letters 'gh' as in 'cough,' 'o' as in 'women,' and 'ti' as in 'motion.'"
by author Ivan Doig in The Whistling Season
We're reading through together John Steinbeck's "East of Eden." We are really enjoying it. The next books we'd like to read together are The Chronicles of Narnia. We miss you and love you tons.
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I'm so enjoying having a clear moment to read and think with you. I commented to the Outrage. Outraged with you and God is too!
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