cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16743680
ghoti rule
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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Context for the joke.
For spelling reform proponents it's kind of a ~~fishy~~ ghoty argument, as it ignores positional value.
This context does not explain why it's /hɔʊrɪ/ instead of /oʊti/ in the title.
That "/r/" is representing tapping. It's technically incorrect because the phoneme is still /t/, it's just the sound that is [ɾ]. That /h/ is probably from parsing ⟨gh⟩ as a consonant cluster instead of a digraph, just because why not, with epenthetic /ə/ dissolving the illegal cluster. (Oi, cluster! Where's your loicense?)
Oh huh. That's weird to me. Flapping is definitely a significant feature of my accent, but I definitely don't do it with ghoti (or goatee).
You've already pointed out the problem with using / / when what was meant was [ ], but you kinda brushed over the problem of using [r] when they meant [ɾ].
Do you think the same thing there is what lead to the final vowel? [i] vs [ɪ]? It's a bit harder to explain because r could be explained as "it was the closest I could get on my keyboard without extra effort", but ɪ requires having gone to seek out non-standard keyboard characters.
I think that you're stressing in the last syllable of "ghoti", while OP is stressing the second-to-last. That explains why it's triggering intervocalic flapping for them, but not for you - while flapping rules change depending on the dialect, it's typically blocked in intervocalic environment if /t d/ are followed by a stressed vowel.
That might also explain the final vowel, why it's [i(:)] for you and [ɪ] for the OP.
I thought that might be the case too, and actually had half drafted a paragraph explaining that. But then I actually took a second look and no, I stress the first syllable of "ghoti". I do stress the second syllable of "goatee", which has all the same phonemes (well, unless the fact that ghoti has [i] but goatee has [i:] matters), but a different stress for me.
I don't really know what the flapping "rules" are for my dialect. I flap in famous examples like "butter", but for whatever reason not here.
I was looking for further info, and found something interesting:
It seems that the "rules" in this case are pretty much individual, not even dialectal. And to add confusion to the mix, it seems that your dialect allows both flapping and glottalisation, and they're competing with each other.
That backtracks to what you mentioned about the vowel quality - perhaps [i] (and potentially other vowels) block flapping for you.
Is glottalisation where [t] is replaced by a glottal stop, like is common in Cockney? Australian English is much less varied than American or British, but still varied enough that I can believe that, even though as far as I'm aware it doesn't feature in my accent.
Yeah I suspect that's probably it. I recall seeing a list of vowels where it's done in Australian English, and I think [ɪ] was on it, but not [i].
It's /gəˈhɔʊrɪ/ in the title. I personally read it as /'gɔʊti/ but it's part of the joke that there is no right pronunciation. [t]>[r] between vowels is common in American English. It's not the "English R" but kind of the Spanish or Italian one.
I didn't read the context so this might be old news, but you can even read it as nothing since all the letters can be silent (as much as they can be fish)
More specifically: it's similar to the R in Spanish "pero" and Italian "correre", a tap; unlike the RR in Spanish "perro" and Italian "correre". In English typically when you hear the trill it's for /r/, among Scottish speakers.
G as "gnaw", H as "hour", O as "rough", T as "listen", I as "business". Done, ghoti = Ø.