You may be familiar with the ghoti, the shiny animal with fins that lives in the water; perhaps you even have your own ghoti tank. Ghotis evolved long ago, but they didn’t get their name until the 19th century, when jokesters noted that, thanks to the weirdness of English spelling, the word “fish” might be written with a “gh”, as in “rough”, an “o”, as in “women”, and a “ti”, as in “lotion”.
The idea of the ghoti is often attributed to George Bernard Shaw, but there’s no evidence that he coined it. He was, however, a proponent of simplified spelling – an enterprise that...
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