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Two executives were arranging a contract signing over the phone.
“I’ll send my assistant,” said the first. “His name is Fish.”
“Fish?”
“Yes, Fish.”
The second executive jotted it down. F-I-S-H. Easy enough.
On the day of the meeting, the assistant arrived. The receptionist handed him a name badge: FISH. The assistant looked at it, sighed, and walked into the conference room.
“Mr. Fish!” said the executive, extending a hand. “Pleasure.”
The assistant smiled tightly. “It’s pronounced Fish. But it’s not spelled Fish.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s spelled G-H-O-T-I.”
The executive stared at the badge, then at the assistant. “That spells… ghoti.”
“GH as in enough. O as in women. TI as in nation. Ghoti. Fish.”
“Your parents did this to you?”
“My parents are fine,” said the assistant. “George Bernard Shaw did this to me. They were fans.”
The executive paused. Then he walked to the whiteboard and wrote:
G-H-O-T-I
He stared at it. Stared some more.
“This is the cruelest thing I have ever seen done with the alphabet,” he said.
“Every first day of school,” said the assistant. “Every job interview. Every hotel check-in. Every coffee order.”
“For your entire life.”
“For my entire life.”
They signed the contract in silence. The executive never complained about English spelling again.
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