Analysis 1. The phonetic diversity of root verbs whose simple past tense forms end in the sound "-ought" and are spelled "-ought" or "-aught"
-eek: seek, sought
-ehk: wreak, wrought
-each: teach, taught
-igh: buy, bought
-ight: fight, fought ***
-atch: catch, caught **
-ing: bring, brought *
Analysis 2. The unreliability of a root verb's phonetic suffix as a clue towards its simple past tense conjugation
* "bring, brought" despite sing, sang / fling, flang / swing, swang / ring, rang; and cling, clung / wring, wrung
** "catch, caught" despite attach, attached / snatch, snatched / patch, patched
*** "fight, fought" despite knight, knighted / right, righted; and light, lit; and write, wrote
Analysis 3. Phonetic Clues to Semantic Correlations in the absence of Orthographic Evidence
reek, rot <-- a forgotten semantic connection --> that which reeks is rotten, but we now say "it reeked" rather than "it rot." "Rot" now describes the process by which foods spoil while "reek" is reserved for the stench alone, not the process.
drink, draught <-- "drank" is the past tense but "a draught" refers to a liquid concoction meant to be consumed orally, e.g. a potion.
Analysis 4. Orthographic Clues to Semantic Correlations in the absence of Phonetic Clues
drink, drought <-- rhyming with "snout" or "shout," the word "drought" refers to an absence of water for drinking and agriculture. But I wonder, given the French influence on the language and the French predisposition towards weather idioms that speak of a 3rd party (e.g. "Il pleut" means "it's raining" but could also mean "he's crying"; and "Il fait beau" means "it's nice weather" but it could also mean "He's making it beautiful / doing it beautifully") that a "drought" might not refer to God or some pagan entity having drunk all of the land's water up.
Analysis 5. Orthographic Divergence Resulting in Eventual Phonetic Divergence
"draft" and "draught" do not rhyme in modern English, but one wonders if both were once different spellings of the same spoken word (draft). Corroborating evidence:
laugh ("laff")
cough ("coff")
rough ("ruff")
tough ("tuff")
So "draught" was once pronounced "draft" but over time its reading was either forgotten and mispronounced by the masses or else was officially decreed by academicians to be "draught" rhyming with "sought", "caught," etc.
As to the words "sought," "caught," etc., one can only speculate as to whether or not they were formerly pronounced "soft" and "coft" or else were formerly spelled in a way fitting their pronunciation. Clearly no one advances a pronunciation of "soggt" or "coggt".
Disclaimer 1. This is all just fun imagination. With particular reference to Analyses 3 and 4, I wish to point out that I am not seriously pushing these as linguistic claims nor have I conducted any real research. It's just fun to consider these sorts of things and to connect the dots, even if, like a 3-year old child, one is connecting the dots incorrectly.
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5 comments:
Try this one: "ghoti and tchoghs" ...
It's a common phrase. Hint: it's a favorite meal in England.
I was trying to rearrange the letters for the longest time until I realized it was a case of "read the letters as they might alternatively sound" and then the answer was, courtesy of your hint of course :), fairly simple.
Fish and Chips.
Gh = F (as in cough)
o = i (as in women)
ti = sh (as in -tion)
Tch = Ch (as in watch)
o = i (see above)
gh = p (as in ... as in ... YOU GOT ME :O)
s = s (unchanged)
So even with the hint, I can't quite draw the connection between Gh and P. I invite my other readers to try it out and claim the credit but I'll ask Matt to hold off on sharing the answer until one of us (including possibility for me again! ;p) figures it out.
The 'p' is from the British "hiccoughs" which Americans spell phonetically -- "hiccups".
No. way. :O
Ghoti is total bullshit! Shaw wasn't thinking when he came up with it at all.
When is GH ever an F noise at the beginning of a syllable? It's always a hard g, whether i ghost or aghast or ghetto or gherkin or Ghibilline or ghoul. and -oti- is only a sh noise when it's in formations like the -tion ending because of a process that I don't remember the name of because it's 1 AM.
Some of the things you came up with are interesting, Nazz -- draft and draught are in fact related -- and one catagorically uses draught in UK-English spellings (like draughtsman). Reek and rot aren't, however, at least for a 1000 years of history: to reek comes from O.E. reocan (to emit smoke) whereas to rot comes from O.E. rotian which meant the same then as it does now.
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